Ube  Xttnlversits  of  Chicago 


ANT0N1US  RHETOR  ON 
VERSIFICATION 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED  TO  THE  FACULTY 
OF  THE  GRADUATE  SCHOOL  OF  ARTS  AND  LITERATURE 
IN  CANDIDACY  FOR  THE  DEGREE  OF 
DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

DEPARTMENT  OE  OLD  TESTAMENT  LITERATURE  AND  INTERPRETATION 
IN  THE  GRADUATE  DIVINITY  SCHOOL 


MARTIN  SPRENGL1NG 


Private  Edition,  Distributed  By 
THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  LIBRARIES 
CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS 


Reprinted  from 

The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages  and  Literatures 


TJ548I 

S76 


Vol.  XXXII,  No.  3,  April  1916 


Ube  'dniv’ersitis  ot  Gbtcago 


ANTONIUS  RHETOR 
VERSIFICATION 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED  TO  THE  FACULTY 
OF  THE  GRADUATE  SCHOOL  OF  ARTS  AND  LITERATURE 
IN  CANDIDACY  FOR  THE  DEGREE  OF 
DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

DEPARTMENT  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT  LITERATURE  AND  INTERPRETATION 
IN  THE  GRADUATE  DIVINITY  SCHOOL 


/BY 

MARTIN  SPRENGLING 


Private  Edition,  Distributed  By 
THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  LIBRARIES 
CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS 


Reprinted  from 

The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages  and  Literatures 

Vol.  XXXII,  No.  3,  April  1916 


ANTONIUS  RHETOR  ON  VERSIFICATION 


WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION  AND  TWO  APPENDICES 


By  Martin  Sprengling 
University  of  Chicago 


Ephrem  Syrus  is  not  a  great  poet  to  everybody’s  taste.  Singing 
a  simile  to  death  in  praise  of  a  saint  or  applying  strong  epithets  to 
dead-and-gone  heretics  in  long,  carefully  numbered  series  of  syllables 
will  not  impress  many  modern,  occidental  readers  as  good  poetry. 
Yet,  such  as  he  is,  in  the  very  bulk  of  his  works,  in  the  variety  of 
topics  treated  and  of  legitimate  meters  and  strophic  structures 
employed,  in  a  kind  of  facile  inventiveness,  in  the  esteem  in  which 
he  was  held  by  a  great  number  of  his  contemporaries  and  a  still 
greater  number  of  his  countrymen  of  succeeding  generations,  Ephrem 
is  the  Syriac  poet  par  excellence;  and  perhaps  it  is,  as  Duval  (Lit. 
Syr3.,  p.  13)  says,  that  the  Syrians  “saw  excellences,  where  we  find 
faults.”  As  Ephrem  is  the  first  of  Syriac  poets  whose  works  have 
been  preserved  to  us  in  quantity,  so  he  became  a  kind  of  Syriac 
Homer,  the  type  and  model  of  classic  Syriac  poetry. 

A  new,  sumptuous  edition  of  Ephrem’s  complete  works,  as  pre¬ 
served  in  the  original  tongue  and  in  translations,  is  in  process  of 

publication,  as  the  first  fasciculus  of  the  first  volume,  dated  Rome, 

» 

1915,  shows.1  The  former  attempt  at  a  similar  edition,  made  at 


1  The  full  title  is:  S.  Ephraem  Syri  Opera.  Textum  Syriacum  Graecum  Latinum 
ad  fldem  codicum  recensuit,  prolegomenis  notis  indicibus  instruxit  Sylvius  Ioseph  Mer- 
cati.  Tomus  primus,  Fasc.  primus.  Sermones  in  Abraham  et  Isaac,  In  Basilium 
Magnum,  In  Eliam  ....  Komae,  Sumptibus  Pontiflcii  Instituti  Biblici,  1915.  It 
forms  in  turn  Vol.  I  of  a  larger  series:  Monumenta  Biblica  et  Ecclesiastica. 

145 


146  The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages 

Rome  under  papal  auspices,  was  good  enough  in  its  day,  the  end  of 
the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  but  has  long  since  become 
superannuated.  Both  flow  through  the  channel  of  papal  munificence. 
The  former  was  a  gift  of  the  Orient  to  the  Occident;  it  was  brought 
out  by  that  brilliant  Maronite  family,  who  laid  in  Europe  the  founda¬ 
tions  of  an  adequate  knowledge  of  Syriac  literature,  the  Assemanis 
( as-Simdni ),  and  by  their  friend  Father  Benedictus  (i.e.,  Mubar- 
rak).  In  the  present  edition  the  Occident  returns  the  favor  with 
interest.  Not  only  will  the  text  of  Ephrem  here  published  have  the 
benefit  of  all  the  improvements  modern  technique  can  supply,  but 
it  is  avowedly  the  intent  of  this  whole  edition  with  all  the  labor 
therein  involved  to  furnish  a  reliable  basis  for  the  exact  study  of 
classical  Syriac  poetics  and  versification  and  its  supposed  influence 
on  the  new  turn  taken  by  Byzantine  and  Latin  verse  in  the  early 
Middle  Ages. 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  the  chief  interest  of  the  new  editor 
of  Ephrem  is  centered  in  the  laws  of  Syriac  and  Byzantine  and 
mediaeval  Latin  versification.  Mercati  is  a  pupil  and  evidently 
a  thoroughgoing  follower  of  W.  Meyer  of  Speyer  (Mercati,  op.  cit., 
Proem  passim ,  and  especially  p.  xiv).  W.  Meyer  is  an  expert  pioneer 
and  explorer  in  the  field  of  mediaeval  Latin,  and  incidentally  also  of 
Byzantine,  versification,  as  his  two  volumes  of  Gesammelte  Abhand- 
lungen  zur  mittellateinischen  Rhythmik  (Berlin,  1905)  amply  demon¬ 
strate.  He  is  interested  in  Syriac  versification  in  general  and  in 
Ephrem  and  the  Greek  translations  of  his  works  in  particular  as  in 
one  of  the  influences  which  gave  rise  to  the  Christian  poetry  of 
Byzantium  and  Rome,  and  through  these  to  some  of  the  peculiarities 
of  our  own  modern  poetry,  Germanic  and  Romance.  For  his 
knowledge  of  Syriac  and  Hebrew  versification  he  seems  to  have 
depended  chiefly  upon  Hahn  and,  perhaps,  Bickell,  and  was  accord¬ 
ingly  misled  in  several  particulars.  One  of  these  faulty  assump¬ 
tions,  a  supposedly  rigid  disposition  of  accents  at  the  close  of  each 
Syriac  verse,  he  has  since  retracted  upon  the  advice  of  Noldeke 

(op.  cit.,  I,  11).  On  the  matter  of  rhyme  Meyer  is  still  somewhat 

* 

at  fault,  and  Eduard  Norden  ( Antike  Kunstprosa,  810-908;  Nach- 
trage,  11-13)  is  fuller  and  nearer  right,  though  Meyer’s  presentation 
(op.  cit.,  II,  122-26)  is  neither  so  one-sided  nor  so  hopeless  as  would 


Antonius  Rhetor  on  Versification 


147 


appear  from  Norclen’s  statements.  For  the  rest,  in  his  supposition 
that  Semitic  models  had  much  to  do  with  the  prevalence  of  the 
acrostich  and  with  the  principle  of  syllable-counting  in  mediaeval 
Christian  poetry,  Meyer  has  in  matter  and  manner  a  better  case  than 
Norden  and  others  seem  willing  to  admit.1 

It  is  largely  to  furnish  a  trustworthy  text  as  a  basis  for  the 
demonstration  of  this  theoiy  that  Mercati  has  undertaken  the  new 
edition  of  Ephrem.  The  undertaking  is  praiseworthy  enough,  and 
the  object  is  not  unworthy.  It  is  to  be  hoped,  however,  that  the 
theory  will  not  bias  the  restitution  of  the  text.  For  Ephrem  after 
all  is  of  some  value  in  other  directions,  and  his  works  contain, 
besides  much  mere  verse-making  of  more  than  Victorian  length  and 
tiresomeness,  some  poems2  and  passages  of  great  beauty,  as  the  opinion 
and  the  loans  of  the  great  Byzantine  poet  Romanos  testify  (Krum- 
bacher,  loc.  cit.).  And  for  our  better  knowledge  of  classical  Syriac 
versification  also  one  of  the  prime  requisites  is  a  text  of  Ephrem  resting 
upon  sound  general  text-critical  principles  not  unduly  influenced  by 
any  special  theory  on  the  history  of  versification. 

As  does  this  introductory  resume,3  so  must  every  examination 
and  exposition  of  classical  Syriac  verse  take  Ephrem  for  its  starting- 
point.  It  is  one  of  the  merits  of  Hubert  Grimme,4  for  which  he  has 
been  unduly  criticized,  that  he  recognized  this  and  acted  upon  it. 
If  Becq  de  Fouquieres  was  justified  in  basing  his  fundamental  treatise 

1  Cf.  Krumbacher,  “Die  Griechische  Literatur  des  Mittelalters”  in  Kultur  der 
Gegenwart,  Griechische  und  Lateinische  Literatur  und  Sprache,  1905,  pp.  259  and  262;  also 
Baumstark,  Die  chr.  Lit.  des  Orients,  I  (Sammlung  Goschen,  No.  527),  Leipzig,  1911, 
p.  16. 

2  Cf.,  e.g.,  the  sprightly  hymn  on  the  Virgin  Mary,  Lamy,  II,  538  ff.,  No.  6,  and  the 
stately  and  impressive  11th  hymn  on  the  holy  martyrs,  Lamy,  III,  711  ff. 

3  This  sketch  of  the  work  hitherto  done  on  Syriac  prosody,  written  partly  in  appre¬ 
ciation  of  Mercati ’s  new  edition  of  Ephrem,  partly  as  an  introduction  to  the  publication 
of  a  portion  of  the  Harvard  manuscript  of  Anthony  of  Tagrit,  covers  the  ground  with 
some  fulness,  because  nothing  of  the  sort,  accessible  to  English  students  and  readers, 
seems  to  be  in  existence.  The  only  thing  of  the  kind  of  which  I  have  found  any  trace 
is  a  treatise  by  Lamy  On  Syriac  Prosody,  said  by  Duval,  Journal  asiatique,  9e  Serie,  t.  X 
(1897),  65,  n.  1,  to  be  “dans  les  Actes  du  Congres  des  Orientalistes  de  Londres  de  1891.’’ 
A  diligent  search  of  the  Harvard  College  Library  failed  to  bring  to  light  this  essay, 
which  from  Duval’s  statement  must  have  formed  an  intermediate  stage  between 
Lamy’s  first  effort  in  the  Prolegomena  of  Vol.  Ill  of  his  Ephraem  Syri  Hymni  et  Ser- 
mones  in  1889  and  his  finished  presentation  of  the  final  results  attained  by  him  in 
Vol.  IV  of  the  same  work  (1902),  coll.  469-96  (but  see  also  the  Foreword  of  this  latter 
volume,  p.  vii).  In  any  case,  whatever  Lamy  did  does  not  conflict  with  the  present 
sketch,  nor  does  the  one  make  the  other  unnecessary. 

4  On  Grimme’s  work  in  this  field  see  pp.  157  ff. 


148  The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages 

on  French  versification  for  the  classical  period  upon  Racine  alone — 
and  his  results  would  seem  to  have  amply  justified  the  brilliant 
Frenchman's  procedure — then  the  needful  refoundation  of  our  knowl¬ 
edge  of  Syriac  prosody  will  have  to  proceed  from  a  thorough  investi¬ 
gation  of  just  such  a  text  of  Ephrem  as  Mercati  intends  to  give  us. 

It  should  be  Ephrem  and  no  other.  In  the  facility  wherewith 
he  molded  the  Syriac  language  into  a  variety  of  rhythmical  forms, 
Ephrem  represents  the  finished  product  of  a  developmental  process 
of  considerable  length  and  intensity.  Of  what  preceded  him  only 
the  smallest  remnants  are  preserved.  The  Carpentras  stele  (CIS, 
II,  141;  with  an  English  translation,  in  Cooke,  N  orthsemitic  Inscrip¬ 
tions,  pp.  205  f. ;  photogravure  in  Lidzbarski,  Nordsem.  Epigraphik, 
Vol.  II,  Plate  XXVIII,  3),  in  Egyptian  Aramaic  of  the  fourth  or 
fifth  century  b.c.,  is  almost  certainly  composed  in  verses  of  seven 
syllables  each  or  thereabouts.  Though  not  found  in  any  extant 
document,  yet  of  more  significance  than  a  mere  accident,  is  Professor 
Charles  C.  Torrey's  unforced  retranslation  of  the  Lukan  Lord's 
Prayer  into  the  Jewish  Aramaic  of  Jesus'  time,  which  fell  naturally 
and  without  seeking  under  Professor  Torrey’s  skilled  hands  into  the 
same  meter.1  Coming  thence  to  the  two  old  gnostic  hymns  in  the 
acts  of  Judas  Thomas,  the  Soul’s  Wedding  and  the  Song  of  the 
Apostle  Judas  Thomas  in  the  Land  of  the  Hindus,  the  latter  often 
called  the  Hymn  of  the  Soul,  we  are  somewhat  nearer  the  home  of 
Edessene  Syriac  and  on  rather  firmer  ground.2  The  exact  date  of 
neither  is  known,  but  the  time  of  Bardaisan,  to  whom  they  have 
by  some  scholars  been  assigned,  the  turn  of  the  second  and  third 
centuries  a.d.,  will  not  be  far  wrong.  Both  are  composed  in  distichs 
of  six-syllable  verses.  As  to  whether  these  beautiful  rhapsodies 
belong  to  Bardaisan  or  not,  no  conclusive  evidence  has  yet  been 
offered.  Very  eminent  authorities  in  various  related  fields — Noldeke, 
Burkitt,  Preuschen — have  expressed  their  opinion  in  the  affirmative. 
The  present  writer's  feeling  inclines  in  the  same  direction.  This 

1  Cf.  Torrey  in  ZA ,  XXVIII,  2-4  (March,  1914),  312-17.  The  more  important 
literature  on  the  Carpentras  stele  is  named  by  Professor  Torrey  in  this  article. 

2  First  published  by  W.  Wright,  Apocryphal  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  London,  1871, 

I.  PP-  f.  and  ;  English  translation,  II,  150  ff.,  23S-45;  cf.  also  Bevan’s 

text  of  the  Hymn  of  the  Soul  with  translation  in  Robinson’s  Cambridge  Texts  and  Studies, 
Vol.  V,  No.  3.  The  best  edition  of  the  texts  is  that  published  with  German  translation 
by  G.  Hoffmann,  in  ZNTW,  IV,  4  (1903),  273-309.  See  also  Baumstark,  op.  cit.,  p.  41. 


Antonius  Rhetor  on  Versification 


149 


is  not  the  place  to  argue  the  question  in  detail.  The  pitiful  shreds 
which  the  parsimonious  hand  of  Ephrem  has  preserved  for  us  (five 
fragments  constituting  in  all  ten  lines  of  five  syllables,  one  of  eight, 
and  two  of  six  each,  is  the  sum  total)1  are  all  that  we  can  be  abso¬ 
lutely  sure  of.  A  six-syllable  line,  quoted  by  Philoxenus  (see  Appen¬ 
dix  I,  1),  is  certainly  Bardaisan’s  property,  probably  a  poetic  verse. 
Though  much  too  little  to  give  us  any  adequate  idea  of  Bardaisan’s 
style  or  thought,  and  though  culled  and  presented  with  all  the  fairness 
and  honesty  of  a  modern  war  censor  or  hostile  headquarters,  they 
are  yet  sufficient  together  with  the  comment  of  Ephrem  and  Rabbula 
to  give  the  impression  of  poetic  powers  distinctly  greater  than 
Ephrem’s.  Clearly  and  flagrantly,  now  wilfully,  more  often  stupidly, 
Ephrem  misunderstood  Bardaisan,  and  a  better  basis  for  just  such 
misunderstanding  could  hardly  be  furnished  than  just  such  songs 
as  those  in  the  Acts  of  Thomas.  Moreover,  Bardaisan’s  fame  as  a 
poet  rests  upon  fairly  good  evidence  (cf.  Appendix  I,  2).  It  seems 
hardly  in  accord  with  the  principle  of  the  economy  of  documents, 
since  we  are  restricted  to  supposition,  to  assume  another  unknown 
author  for  the  ‘‘gnostic”  hymns  of  the  Acts  of  Thomas. 

In  any  case  Bardaisan’s  is  the  earliest  name  of  any  Syriac  poet 
preserved  to  us,  and,  aside  from  the  few  lines  positively  known  to 
be  his,  the  hymns  of  the  Acts  of  Thomas  are  the  earliest  extant  Syriac 
verse.  And  these  two  constitute  about  all  the  pre-Ephraimite 
Syriac  verse  in  our  possession,  upon  which,  manifestly,  no  very 
extensive  treatise  on  Syriac  versification  may  be  based.2  Those  who 
follow  Ephrem  within  the  classical  period  of  Syriac  poetry,  i.e., 
before  the  dominance  of  Arabic  and  Islam,  or,  from  an  inner-Syriac 


1  The  55th  Hymn  against  Heresies  of  Ephrem,  which  contains  all  of  Ephrem’s  direct 
quotations  from  Bardaisan’s  verse,  in  English  translation  preserving  the  form  of  the 
original,  will  be  found  in  Appendix  I,  1.  The  Philoxenus  fragment  is  printed  there  also. 

2  The  syllabic  construction  of  the  Bardaisanite  fragments  is  clearly  set  forth  in 
Appendix  I ;  all  that  may  safely  be  said  will  be  found  there.  The  hymns  of  the  Acts  of 
Thomas  exhibit  six-syllable  verse  throughout,  gathered  into  distichs  by  a  Hebraic  yaral- 
lelismus  membrorum  for  the  most  part  unmistakably  clear;  larger  strophic  structure  has 
not  been  successfully  demonstrated.  With  the  elimination  of  the  Sozomenus  tradition 
it  becomes  increasingly  clear  that  with  our  present  resources  nothing  can  be  known 
except  by  inference  concerning  pre-Ephraimite  strophic  structures.  Lest  the  unwary 
think  them  forgotten,  it  is  distinctly  stated  here  that  the  Odes  of  Solomon  have  been 
deliberately  omitted  from  this  review ;  though  it  may  still  be  possible  to  doubt  that  they 
are  translations,  no  doubt  is  possible  to  the  knowing  that  they  follow  no  known  methods 
of  versification,  Syriac  or  otherwise.  Sooner  or  later  they  will  be  claimed  to  represent 
a  stage  preceding  Bardaisan’s  introduction  of  vowel-counting  verse  and  regular  strophes. 


150  The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages 

point  of  view,  before  Anthony  of  Tagrit,  tread  no  great  distance 
beside  Ephrem’s  footsteps.  Even  the  most  renowned  of  them, 
Balai,  Cyrillona,  Isaac  of  Amid,  Isaac  of  Antioch,  Narses,  James  of 
Sarug,  acknowledge  Ephrem  as  their  master  and  do  not  appreciably 
remove  from  the  well-trodden  paths  by  him  approved  as  good  and 
safe.  And  if  a  late1  “  tradition”  connects  the  name  of  Balai  with 
a  five-,  that  of  Narses  with  a  six-,  that  of  James  of  Sarug  with  a 
twelve-syllable  meter,  as  that  of  seven  syllables  is  named  after 
Ephrem,  then  on  the  one  hand  this  tradition  is  not  in  every  case 
corroborated  by  known  facts,  on  the  other  it  means  no  more  than 
that  such  a  meter  was  the  favorite  of  such  an  author,  in  which  he 
excelled,  not  by  him  invented.  It  is  Ephrem,  therefore,  who  must 
furnish  the  basis  and  by  far  the  greatest  amount  of  material  for  any 
investigation  of  the  laws  of  classical  Syriac  verse. 

But  it  must  be  a  corrected,  carefully  edited  text  of  Ephrem. 
The  insufficiency  of  the  editio  princeps  in  this  respect  is  notorious. 
Overbeck  in  his  Ephraemi  Syri  aliorumque  Opera  Selecta,  Oxford, 
1865,  published  for  the  most  part  simply  the  text  of  his  manu¬ 
script,  mistakes  and  all,  and  that  not  always  faultlessly;  he  gives 
no  hint,  e.g.,  of  the  manifest  superfluity  of  ,  end  of  line  12, 

p.  3,  i.e.,  the  very  first  page  of  text  printed  by  him.  Lamy,  too, 
leaves  something  to  be  desired.2  The  best  work  in  this  direction 
yet  done  is  that  of  Bickell  in  his  Carmina  Nisibena.  Grimme’s 
statement,  ZDMG,  XL VII  (1893),  278,  that  scarcely  a  single  Syriac 
poem,  though  it  be  of  the  simplest  form,  exhibits  the  regular  number 
of  syllables  in  all  its  verses,  may  not  in  its  entirety  be  ascribed  to 
exaggeration;  it  is  in  no  small  part  due  to  bad  texts.  A  text  which 
constantly  necessitates  conjectural  emendation  by  the  reader  will 
not  do ;  one  of  the  next  necessary  steps  in  the  investigation  of  Syriac 
verse  is  the  production  of  a  reliable  text  of  Ephrem,  such  as  the 
Vatican  contemplates  in  its  new  edition  (see  above). 

What  has  just  been  said,  not  only  expresses  one  of  the  needs  of 
modern  scholarship  in  this  field,  but  it  also  uncovers  one  of  the 
sources  of  error,  one  of  the  reasons  for  the  insufficiency  of  the  work 
hitherto  done  by  moderns  in  the  investigation  of  Syriac  poetry  and 

1  It  can  be  traced  to  Antonius  Rhetor,  at  least. 

2Cf.  Noldeke,  GGA  (1882),  1505-14;  (1887),  81-7;  WZKM,  IV,  245-51;  XVII, 
19(5-203. 


Antonius  Rhetor  on  Versification 


151 


poetics.  It  is,  however,  by  no  means  the  only  point  at  which  this 
work  needs  correction  and  completion  in  fundamentals  as  well  as  in 
ultimate  detail,  as  a  brief  review  will  speedily  show. 

The  foundations  of  all  knowledge  on  the  subject  were  laid  in 
Europe  by  the  writings  and  teachings  of  Maronites.  George  Amira, 
a  Maronite  teacher  of  Syriac  grammar  in  Rome,  was  the  first  to 
publish  in  Europe  a  crude  and  insufficient  statement  of  the  elements 
of  Syriac  poetics,  as  a  sort  of  an  appendix  to  his  Syriac  grammar 
(Rome,  1596).  He  was  rediscovered  by  Lamy,  Ephraem  Syri 
Hymni  et  Sermones,  t.  IV,  coll.  496  ff.,  upon  whom  this  statement 
is  based,  as  Amira’s  grammar  is  found  neither  in  the  Harvard  nor 
in  the  Chicago  libraries,  nor,  indeed,  so  far  as  I  know,  in  America. 
Amira  taught,  briefly,  that  Syriac  verse  is  not  quantitative;  that 
Syriac  liturgical  books  contain  many  different  kinds  of  verses  (he 
calls  them  cannina),  the  heptasyllabic  being  named  after  Ephrem, 
that  of  twelve  syllables,  subdivided  into  three  groups  (significantly 
called  pausae)  of  fours,  after  James  of  Sarug;  that  he  considered 
most  elegant  distichs  of  six  pausae,  ornamented  with  various  species 
of  artificial  rhyme;  and  that  certain  synizeses  and  diaereses  were 
perihissible  to  bring  about  the  requisite  number  of  syllables.  The 
fragment  of  Petrus  Metoscita’s  Syriac  grammar,  published  by  Martin 
from  the  Vatican  manuscript,  No.  435,  p.  168,  in  Metrique  chez  les 
S yriens,  p.  18,  n.  1,  is  not  very  clear,  being  separated  from  its  con¬ 
text.  Its  meaning  can  hardly  be  other  than:  There  are  two  kinds 
of  verse,  that  which  counts  vowels  or  syllables,  as  do  we,  the  Syrians, 
and  that  which  measures  their  length  or  brevity.  Assemani,  quoted 
ibidem  from  the  Vatican  manuscript,  No.  389,  adds  the  distinction 
between  simple  and  composite  meter,  and  names  of  the  former,  in 
addition  to  those  mentioned  by  Amira,  that  of  Mar  Balai.  From 
Petrus  Mubarrak  (Beneclictus)  we  learn  ( Ephr .  Syr.,  Opp.  Syr.-Lat., 
t.  II,  Praef.  ad  lectorem,  p.  xxvi)  that  this  Balaean  measure  was  the 
pentasyllabic.  He  adds  further  the  information  that  Syriac  tunes, 
named  by  hirmi  or  model  strophes,  are  often  given  at  the  head  of 
hymns  (as  our  “Old  Hundredth/’  and  sometimes  the  count  of 
musically  valid  syllables,  is  printed  over  our  hymn. tunes),  and  the 
misinformation  that  Hebraic  meter  is  exactly  like  the  Syriac,  and 
that  the  Greeks  possess  but  eight  hymn  tunes,  whereas  the  Syrians 


152  The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages 

have  275.  Al.  Assemani,  Codex  liturgicus  Ecclesiae  universae,  Rome, 
1756,  t.  IX,  Praef.  xciv,  adds  some  information  on  the  denotation 
and  use  of  hymn  tunes,  which  need  not  be  quoted  in  detail.  J.  S. 
Assemani,  Bibliotheca  Orientalis,  I,  61,  explains  the  naming  of  some 
meters  after  poets,  makes  a  faulty  distinction  between  Sermones 
(Mimre)  and  Hymni  ( Madrashe )  and  calls  attention  to  the  acrostics 
used  by  Ephrem.  To  complete  our  enumeration  of  modern  works 
on  the  subject  by  native  Syrians,  wholly  or  partially  published, 
mention  must  be  made  of  two  further  authors.  The  first  is  Stephanus 
Petrus  Aldoensis,  patriarch  of  the  Maronites  in  the  second  half  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  His  work,  referred  to  by  Mubarrak  and 
Hahn,  quoted  by  Al.  Assemani,  was  described  in  more  detail  by 
Pius  Zingerle,  in  ZD  MG,  XVII,  687  ff.;  XVIII,  751  ff.  As  pre¬ 
served  in  manuscript  in  the  Vatican  (Angelo  Mai’s  catalogue,  No. 
CCCCXLI),  it  is  a  full  and  explicit  list  of  hymn  tunes,  named  after 
first  lines;  together  with  this  the  first  strophe  is  written  out  in  full, 
the  number  of  verses  and  of  syllables  in  each  verse  (set  out  in  red 
before  each  verse)  being  specially  noted.  It  is  not,  therefore,  a 
scientific  book  on  verse  or  versification  at  all,  but  rather  a  book 
intended  for  practical  use  in  churches.  From  it  are  derived  the 
statements  of  modern  Syrians  concerning  the  many  hymn  tunes  of 
the  Syrians;  his  own  enumeration  is  probably  not  wholly  original, 
but  goes  back  through  whatever  intermediate  stages  to  the  funda¬ 
mental  work  of  Antonius  Rhetor  of  Tagrit.  The  other  author, 
chronologically  the  last,  who  must  not  be  forgotten  in  this  list,  is 
Gabriel  Cardahi  (al-Qardahi) .  Of  his  three  books,  Liber  thesauri  de 
arte  poetica  Syrorum,  Rome,  1875;  AV  Yhkam  seu  linguae  et  artis  metri- 
cae  Syrorum  institutiones,  Rome,  1880;  and  Al-Manahegh  seu  syntaxis 
et  rhetoricae  Syrorum  institutiones,  Rome,  1903,  the  latter  has  been 
inaccessible  for  this  review.  The  other  two,  in  Arabic,  present  the 
author’s  ideas  on  Syriac  poetry  and  poetics.  They  are  marred  by 
an  untrustworthiness,  which  one  is  inclined  to  designate  as  oriental, 
though  it  is  by  no  means  limited  to  the  Orient.  In  AVYhkavn,  p.  72, 
he  definitely  ascribes  (on  what  authority  ?)  the  introduction  of  rhyme 
into  Syriac  poetry  to  Yuhannan  bar  Khaldun,  whom  he  places  in  the 
fifth  century  a.d.;  he  lived  in  the  tenth  (cf.  Duval,  Lit.  Syr.,  p.  18, 
n.  1;  “Vie  du  moine  Rabban  Youssef  Bousnaya,”  Revue  de  V Orient 


Antonius  Rhetor  on  Versification 


153 


chretien,  1897-98).  His  distinction  of  ten  kinds  of  meter,  to  each  of 
which  he  assigns  a  fanciful  name  in  Arabic  and  Syriac,  is  valuable 
only  as  it  exhibits  to  us  a  modern  native’s  feeling  of  what  constitutes 
a  verse  and  its  subdivisions  in  Syriac.  He  distinguishes,  e.g.,  three 
kinds  of  twelve-syllable  verse,  one  divided  into  three  equal  groups, 
one  into  two,  and  one  without  subdivision.  His  Thesaurus  offers 
a  valuable  collection  of  Syriac  poems,  ranging  in  time  from  Ephrem 
to  the  present;  the  historical  notes  are  very  unreliable  throughout. 

Starting  from  such  printed  and  similar  oral  instruction,  European 
scholars  began  to  study  the  subject  of  their  own  accord.  The  first 
of  these  to  make  public  his  lucubrations  was  August  Hahn  in  his 
noteworthy  book,  Bardesanes  Gnosticus  Syrorum  Primus  Hymnologus 
(Leipzig,  1819;  especially  Part  I,  §  4,  pp.  28-51).  Some  of  the 
erroneous  conclusions  in  historical  matters  arrived  at  by  Hahn  in 
this  brilliant  study,  as  pointed  out  in  Appendix  I,  were  due  to  the 
insufficiency  of  his  means  and  sources  rather  than  to  any  lack  of 
acumen  or  honest  diligence  on  his  part.  He  was  similarly  handi¬ 
capped  in  his  work  on  Syriac  meter;  the  faulty  text  of  the  editio 
princeps ,  than  which  he  had  no  other,  led  him  to  the  assumption  of 
unnecessary  and  incorrect  synizeses  and  diaereses.  In  spite  of  this, 
his  real  contributions  to  a  scientific  knowledge  of  the  subject  were 
of  no  mean  order.  He  was  the  first  to  pay  any  attention  to  accent, 
which,  it  seems,  must  play  a  rather  important  role  in  the  rhythm 
of  non-quantitative  verse.  Reading  as  he  did  in  the  manner  of 
modern  Syrians,  with  a  stress-accent  prevailingly  placed  on  the 
penult  (on  what  authority?  orally  taught?  by  whom?),  the  scansion 
of  Syriac  verse  seemed  to  him  in  the  main  quite  self-evident,  much 
easier  than  Greek.  With  a  word  of  three  syllables  frequently  closing 
the  verse,  an  accent  on  the  next  to  the  last  syllable  of  the  verse  was 
natural,  and  he  records  it  as  obtaining  in  other  cases  as  well.  He 
noted  the  similarity  of  Syriac  to  Greek  Christian  ecclesiastical  poetry, 
being  careful  not  to  express  too  decided  an  opinion  as  to  priority. 
The  Syriac  manner  of  slurring  together  the  words  of  a  phrase,  like 
the  Arabic  and  the  French,  did  not  escape  his  notice.  Besides  the 
five-syllable  verse  with  which  he  began,  he  discovered  and  pointed 
out  hymns  in  verses  of  four,  six  (the  Bardaisan  distich  translated 
in  Appendix  I),  and  seven  syllables,  and  some  in  mixed  meters. 


154  The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages 

Faulty  ascription  of  the  model  to  Bardaisan  did  not  prevent  Hahn 
from  perceiving  the  strophic  form  of  the  hymns  Adv.  Scrut.,  49-65 
(eleven  five-syllable  verses),  nor  yet  from  discerning,  wherever 
possible,  the  refrains:  no  small  feat  considering  the  text  he  had  to 
work  with.  In  the  chrestomathy  which  he  edited  together  with 
Siefert  in  1825,  Hahn  further  correctly  defined  the  strophe  of  Adv. 
Scrut.,  67  (five  four-syllable  verses).  If  in  the  attempt  to  classify 
and  describe  the  wide  and  apparently  loose  Syriac  nomenclature  for 
a  variety  of  poetic  forms  he  was  not  fully  successful,  this  is  no  crush¬ 
ing  demerit;  for  neither  wras  he  wholly  unconscious  of  his  short¬ 
comings,  nor  has  a  full  and  exact  definition  of  these  terms  been 
attained  even  at  the  present  day.  All  in  all,  the  pioneer  labors  of 
August  Hahn,  as  compared  with  the  advances  made  since  his  day, 
merit  rather  more  attention  and  credit  than  it  has  been  customary 
to  give  them.1  Following  Hahn  five  other  German  scholars  under¬ 
took  to  make  such  contribution  as  they  might  to  the  work  in  this 
field.  The  first  of  these,  Pius  Zingerle,  has  been  mentioned  above, 
in  connection  with  his  work  on  Stephanus  Petrus  Aldoensis,  one  of 
the  native  writers  enumerated  in  the  previous  section.  In  addition 
to  this  and  other  editorial  and  translation  work,  Zingerle  published 
an  extensive,  and,  in  its  day,  valuable  study  of  strophic  structures 
(now  absorbed  by  Grimme,  and  especially  by  Lamy),  the  beginning 
and  end  of  which  appeared  in  Lassen’s  short-lived  Zeitschrift  fur  die 
Kunde  des  Morgenlandes,  VII,  1-25,  185-97,  while  the  middle  went 
with  the  rest  of  Lassen’s  journal  into  the  pages  of  the  ZDMG,  X, 
116-26.  Of  Fr.  Uhlemann  it  need  only  be  said  (with  Lamy,  op.  cit., 
t.  4,  col.  472)  that  he  appended  to  the  second  edition  of  his  Grammatik 
der  syrischen  Sprache,  Berlin,  1857,  a  brief  section  on  versification 
based  wholly  on  the  work  of  August  Hahn.  This  appears  to  be  the 
only  grammar  in  print,  besides  Amira  (and  Cardahi’s  Manahegh?) , 
which  has  ventured  on  this  ground. 

Gustav  Bickell  represents  on  the  one  side  a  distinct  advance, 
on  the  other  an  aberration.  His  greatest  single  contribution  made 

1  Praetorius  in  his  little  note,  ZDMG,  LIII  (1899),  113,  is  fairer  to  Hahn  than  most 
others.  Joh.  Christian  Wm.  Augusti,  De  Hymnis  Syrorum  Sacris,  1814,  quoted  by  Hahn, 
Bardesanes,  p.  29,  does  not  deprive  Hahn  of  pioneer’s  honors.  Augusti  accepted  Hahn’s 
corrections  in  his  D enkwiirdigkeiten  aus  der  christl.  Archaologie,  V  (Leipzig,  1822),  350—77. 
For  the  best  descriptions  and  definitions  of  Syriac  poetic  forms  now  obtainable  see 
Baumstark,  op.  cit.,  pp.  98-106. 


Antonius  Rhetor  on  Versification 


155 


to  the  subject  directly  is  his  edition  of  Ephrem’s  Carmina  Nisibena 
(Leipzig,  1866).  In  this  book  Bickell  has  edited,  better  than  any¬ 
thing  previously  published  of  Ephrem’s,  73  songs  on  various  places 
and  themes,  the  whole  collection  being  named  after  21  songs  at  the 
head,  which  treat  of  Nisibene  men  and  matters.  In  the  introduction 
sec.  VII,  De  re  metrica,  describes  correctly  a  number  of  strophic 
Structures  with  their  denotations,  expatiates  upon  the  refrains  and 
their  Syriac  origin,  and  gives  a  classified  list  of  diaereses  and  syn- 
aereses  (Bickell’s  term),  with  criticism  and  correction  of  Hahn’s 
errors.  Thus  far  Bickell’s  work  represents  a  notable  advance  toward 
the  securing  of  trustworthy  material  and  a  firm  foundation  for 
the  study  of  Syriac  meters  and  metrics.  From  this  point  onward 
Bickell  walks  on  uncertain  or  wholly  unsafe  ground.  It  is  signifi¬ 
cant  that  henceforth  his  observations  on  Syriac  verse  are  found  in 
books  and  articles  on  Hebrew  metrics,  a  list  and  description  of  which 
is  given  in  W.  H.  Cobb’s  Systems  of  Hebrew  Metre  (Oxford,  1905), 
pp.  108-28.  He  believed  himself  to  be  following  and  elaborating 
a  brilliant  and  original  conjecture  of  Cardinal  Pitra  (found  in  the 
Hymnographie  de  Veglise  grecque,  1868),  but  actually  he  and  Pitra 
were  simply  accepting  at  far  beyond  its  real  value  a  piously  patriotic 
supposition  made  public  in  Europe  by  Petrus  Benedictus  (Mubarrak) 
in  the  preface  to  Vol.  II  of  Ephrem’s  Opp.  Syro-Lat.  (how  far  original 
with  him,  is  hardly  worth  while  investigating),  when  they  assumed 
a  far-reaching  identity  in  the  fundamentals  of  Syriac  and  Hebrew 
versification.  In  a  brief  summary  from  one  of  Bickell’s  articles  in 
the  ZDMG,  printed  in  English  translation  by  Cobb  {op.  cit.,  p.  113), 
these  fundamentals  are  enumerated.  Of  the  six  listed,  the  counting 
of  syllables,  the  disregard  of  quantity,  the  coincidence  of  the  verse- 
lines  ( stichoi )  with  the  divisions  of  the  sense,  and  the  connecting  of 
homogeneous  stichoi  into  symmetrical  and  mutually  equivalent 
strophes  are  in  no  sense  new ;  the  identity  of  metrical  and  grammatical 
accent  was  assumed  by  Hahn  without  express  statement  (the  term 
1  “grammatical”  is  not  very  apt;  what  is  meant  is  modern  everyday 
speech);  the  regular  interchange  of  toned  and  untoned  syllables, 
producing  trochaic  measure  in  verses  of  an  even  and  iambic  in  those 
of  an  odd  number  of  syllables,  is  wholly  Bickell’s  owm,  wholly  un¬ 
founded,  and  probably  wholly  wrong,  for  Syriac  as  well  as  Hebrew. 


156  The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages 

The  greatest  improbability  of  all,  as  Grimme  ( ZDMG ,  XLVII,  278) 
has  pointed  out,  lies  in  the  further  assumption  that  in  strophes  com¬ 
posed  of  dissimilar  verses  all  must  be  read  after  the  manner  estab¬ 
lished  by  the  first  verse. 

A  name,  which  is  scarcely  ever,  or  rather  never,  mentioned  in 
such  a  survey  as  this,  is  that  of  K.  Schlottmann.  The  reason  for 
this  is  twofold.  First  and  foremost,  his  work  is  hidden  away  in  the 
older  volumes  of  the  ZDMG  (XXXII,  187-97  and  767  f.;  XXXIII, 
252-91,  more  especially  279-84)  under  the  title  “Zur  semitischen 
Epigraphik,”  with  the  subtitle  in  Vol.  XXXIII,  “Nebst  Unter- 
such ungen  fiber  die  verschiedenen  Grundprinzipien-  der  Metrik  im 
Arabischen,  Hebraischen  und  Aramaischen.”  Secondly,  the  great, 
but  rather  embittered  De  Lagarde  overspread  it  with  scathing 
criticism,  which  was  meant  to  annihilate,  but  which,  as  is  now  per¬ 
fectly  clear,  in  this  as  in  other  cases,  went  beyond  De  Lagarde’s 
evidence.  In  spite  of  this,  Schlottmann’s  work  stands  forth  today 
as  one  of  the  most  significant  expositions  (in  the  writer’s  opinion  the 
best  to  date)  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  Aramaic  and  in  par¬ 
ticular  of  Syriac  prosody.  Assuming  as  proved  (as  well  he  might)  the 
counting  of  syllables  with  disregard  of  their  quantity  and  extensive 
use  of  parallelismus  membrorum,  he  makes  the  observation  that 
under  the  circumstances,  even  with  the  aid  of  music,  the  use  of  the 
accent  was  indispensable  to  the  production  of  a  rhythmic  movement. 
Touching  briefly  upon  similar  phenomena  in  Byzantine-Greek  and 
Bactrian  poetry,  he  enters  more  extensively  upon  a  comparison  of 
Aramaic  with  French  prosody.  Neither  the  French  nor  the  Syriac 
lays  nearly  as  much  stress  upon  accent  as  do  the  Germanic  peoples. 
Both  French  and  Syriac  count  syllables.  .  Both  French  and  Syriac 
are  largely,  if  not  wholly,  limited  to  quasi-iambic  and  trochaic 
rhythms  and  experience  serious,  if  not  insurmountable,  difficulties 
in  the  creation  of  anapaests  and  dactyls.  French  (and  Syriac, 

—  I  JL 

also?)  does  not  suffer  strict  iambic  scansion,  e.g.,  “Oui  je  viens  dans 

1  1  ,_3_ 

son  temple,”  etc.,  “la  fameuse  journee,”  etc.;  but  rather  suggests 
and  sustains  a  general  iambic  rhythm  by  certain  heavier  accents, 

regularly  recurring  at  the  end  of  hemistichs,  e.g.,  “Oui  je  viens  dans 

1  2  1 

son  temple  adorer  l’eternel,  Je  viens  selons  l’usage  antique  et 


Antonius  Rhetor  on  Versification 


157 


2  1  2  l_ 

solennel  Celebrer  avec  vous  la  fameuse  journee,  Ou  sur  le  mont  Sina 

2 

la  loi  nous  fut  donnee.”  Read  in  this  wise  the  French  Alexandrine 
exhibits  the  graceful  and  vivacious  beauty  native  to  it.  At  this 
point  we  find  that  with  similarities  French  and  Syriac  also  exhibit 
great  dissimilarity  in  their  essential  structure.  The  very  reason 
for  the  similarities  in  prosodic  phenomena  found  in  the  two  languages 
lies  in  a  fundamental  dissimilarity.  French  syllables  are  evenly 
light  and  the  accent  suspended  and  hovering,  making  impossible 
the  thoroughgoing  use  of  other  verse  measure  than  the  count  of 
syllables.  Syriac  and  Aramaic,  with  its  multitude  of  greatly  or 
utterly  reduced  vowels,  is  brought  to  the  same  pass  by  the  evenly 
massive  weight  of  its  syllables,  which  makes  its  iambus  and  trochee 
a  mere  spondee  with  the  accent  on  the  first  or  second  syllable.  Thus 
each  language  must  be  understood  from  the  peculiarities  native  to 
it.  Thus  far  Schlottmann,  who  is  manifestly  more  than  a  precursor 
of  Duval  and  Grimme. 

Grimme  is  the  fifth  of  those  German  scholars  who  labored  inten¬ 
sively  and  wrote  extensively  on  the  problem  of  Syriac  metrics.  His 
results  are  summed  up  in  two  treatises,  the  “Grundziige  der  syrischen 
Betonungs-und  Verslehre,”  ZDMG,  XLVII,  276-307,  and  Der 
Strophenbau  in  den  Gedichten  Ephraems  des  Syrers  ( Collectanea 
Friburgensia ,  fasc.  II),  MDCCCXCIII.  As  Bickell  was  at  least 
stimulated  by  Cardinal  Pitra,  so  Grimme  took  up  and  elaborated 
a  suggestion  of  W.  Meyer  of  Speyer  (see  above,  p.  146).  And  his 
contribution  to  our  knowledge  of  the  subject  is  not  unlike  that  of 
Bickell.  On  the  one  hand  he  has  added  greatly.  In  the  discovery 
of  EphrenFs  strophic  structures  he  is  surpassed  only  by  the  consum¬ 
mate  master  in  this  field,  Lamy.  No  one  has  been  more  acute  than 
he  in  the  discernment  of  the  acrostics  that  mark  out  the  madrashas 
of  Ephrem.  These  madrashas  he  has  correctly  defined  as  songs  of 
varied  strophic  structure  with  a  refrain,  intended  to  be  sung  by 
alternating  choirs,  or  by  a  soloist  alternating  with  a  choir,  in  contra¬ 
distinction  to  the  mimras,  really  metrical  homilies,  much  more 
limited  in  strophic  structure  (in  Ephrem  four  or  six  verses  of  equal 
length  only),  to  be  spoken  by  a  single  performer  in  a  sort  of  recitative. 
But  these  things  would  be  counted  by  Grimme  himself  as  scarcely 


158  The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages 

more  than  chips  and  by-products  of  his  labors.  He  no  doubt  con¬ 
siders  his  best  work  and  his  real  contribution  to  be  the  attempt  to 
establish  once  for  all  the  part  played  by  accent  in  the  rhythmization 
of  Syriac  verse. 

Since  his  attempt  is  the  most  pretentious  and  his  system  the  most 
fully  elaborated  of  any  yet  undertaken,  though  it  is  far  from  being 
generally  accepted,  it  is  only  fair  that  it  should  be  presented  with 
sufficient  accuracy  and  completeness  to  enable  the  reader  to  judge 
for  himself.  We  shall  try  to  reproduce  his  ideas  as  nearly  as  may  be 
in  his  own  words  in  translation,  since  they  are  in  the  main  beautifully 
simple  and  clear.  With  Hahn  and  Bickell  he  assumes  for  poetry 
the  same  accent  as  for  prose  and  for  everyday  speech,  and  for  the 
earliest  extant  poetry  practically  the  same  accent  as  that  which 
obtains  in  modern  spoken  Syriac,  namely  a  strong  stress  prevailingly 
on  the  penult,  the  only  difference  between  the  ancient  and  the  modern 
being  the  treatment  of  certain  monosyllables  as  enclitics.  The 
specific  rules  formulated  by  Grimme  are  as  follows:  (1)  All  words  of 
two  or  more  syllables  (even  foreign  loan-words  are  included)  are 
accented  on  the  penult.  Initial  yodh  may  constitute  a  metrical 
syllable  both  accented  and  unaccented;  with  initial  aleph  pethoho 
and  revoso  are  mere  Shewas,  all  others  full  vowels;  Ul  is  usually 
monosyllabic,  <aj]  and  ,_-j|  are  frequently  bisyllabic.  (2)  An  enclitic 
monosyllable  draws  the  accent  of  a  preceding  polysyllabic  word  to 
the  ultima.  Enclitics  are:  ( a )  personal  pronouns  following  the  verb 
to  emphasize  the  subject;  (6)  the  pronominal  copula;  (c)  the  post¬ 
positive  auxiliary  verb;  (d)  every  monosyllabic  verb  form  at  the 
end  of  a  sentence;  (e)  every  monosyllabic  composition  of  a  preposi¬ 
tion  with  suffix  or  noun,  when  it  follows  its  governing  verb;  (/)  a 
monosyllabic  second  word  in  any  genitive-relation;  (g)  a  mono¬ 
syllabic  word  dependent  upon  a  polysyllabic  preposition;  (h)  post¬ 
positive  particles  and  monosyllabic  vocatives  at  the  end  of  a  sentence. 
(3)  When  two  enclitics  succeed  each  other,  the  first  is  accented,  and 
the  penult  of  a  preceding  polysyllabic  word  may  be  accented  as 
well.  (4)  Words  of  four  or  more  syllables  may  have  two  accents, 
one  on  the  penult  and  one  on  the  syllable  preceding  the  antepenult. 
(5)  When  three  or  more  monosyllables  succeed  each  other,  exact 
rules  for  the  accent  cannot  be  given.  To  these  rules,  which  obtain 


Antonius  Rhetor  on  Versification 


159 


in  poetry  and  prose,  must  be  added  for  poetry  alone  the  possibility 
of  raising  initial  Shewa-syllables  to  the  status  of  metrical  syllables,1 
not  only  unaccented,  as  Bickell  had  assumed,  but  accented  as  well. 
A  bisyllabic  anacrusis  may  cause  the  suppression  of  a  legitimate 
accent  by  rapidity  of  pronunciation.  Having  laid  down  these  rules 
of  accent,  Grimme  proceeds  to  make  the  count  of  accents  rather  than 
the  count  of  syllables  the  law  of  Syriac  meter.  From  two  to  four 
accents  (not  more)  constitute  the  measure  of  the  Syriac  verse.  The 
last  syllable  is  in  all  cases  unaccented.  Before  and  between  accents 
one  or  two  unaccented  syllables  may  be  used;  in  verses  of  two  or 
three  accents  three  successive  unaccented  syllables  are  permitted 
between  accents.  Of  twenty-five  metrical  forms  distinguished  by 
Grimme  he  accepts  nine  as  fundamental,  the  others  serving  as  sub¬ 
stitute  meters. 

The  arbitrariness  and  uncertainty  of  some  of  these  rules  and 
procedures  is  patent  without  further  comment.  The  best  criticism 
of  Grimme’s  unlikely  assumption  of  an  abiding  accent  during  a  mil¬ 
lennium  and  a  half  of  great  changes  and  shifts  in  other  factors  of  the 
Syriac  language  will  be  found  (without  mention  of  Grimme)  in 
Brockelmann’s  Syriac  Grammar  and  in  the  same  author’s  various 
expositions  of  the  comparative  grammar  of  Semitic  languages,  which 
supersede  the  incomplete  statements  of  the  Brockelmann-Grimme 
controversy  ( ZDMG ,  LII  [1898],  401-8;  LIII  [1899]  102-12  [cf.  113], 
and  366-67). 

Less  trenchant  at  this  point,  but  more  thorough  in  the  matter  of 
strophic  structures,  to  which  Grimme  devoted  a  third  section  of  his 
article  and  the  major  portion  of  his  book,  is  the  criticism  of  the  Bel¬ 
gian  master,  Thomas  Joseph  Lamy.  Lamy’s  greatest  contribution 
to  the  subject,  as  has  been  pointed  out  before,  lay  in  the  exposition 
of  Ephrem’s  strophes  and  their  denotations.  Further  direct  con¬ 
tributions  made  by  him  are:  a  good  edition  of  a  large  number  of 
Ephrem’s  poems  and  a  correct  definition  of  certain  technical  desig¬ 
nations  of  several  poetic  forms,  notably  seblHha  and  bauthd  (less  good 
is  his  opinion  of  sugitha;  cf.  Grimme,  ZDMG ,  XLVII,  301).  Besides 
this,  Lamy  gave  a  good  though  not  a  very  deeply  penetrating  resum6 

i  What  this  leads  to  may  be  seen  in  Schlottmann’s  exposition  of  a  faulty  reading  of 
French  meters.  Schlottmann’s  articles  had  evidently  not  been  read,  at  least  not  care¬ 
fully,  by- Grimme,  or  he  would  hardly  have  risked  this  assumption. 


160  The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages 

of  the  work  of  his  predecessors  in  the  field  of  Syriac  metrics.  Lamy’s 
work  was  published  in  his  Saudi  Ephraem  Syri  Hymni  et  Sermones, 
t.  Ill,  pp.  i-xxviii,  and  t.  IV,  coll.  460-96. 1  Since  it  would  be  worse 
than  useless  to  reiterate  Lamy’s  lists  of  strophes,  it  is  no  reflection 
upon  his  work  that  toward  the  end  of  this  review  we  can  sum  it  up 
in  comparatively  brief  space. 

There  is  still  another  point  at  which  Grimme’s  theories  are  open 
to  criticism.  What  Grimme  assumes  to  be  the  only  way  in  which 
accent  may  be  used  to  produce  rhythm  is  after  all  the  Germanic  way, 
not  the  universal  way.  The  term  “Germanic”  (including  English, 
of  course)  is  used  because  it  is  undoubtedly  the  feeling  of  this  ethnic 
group,  which  Grimme  shares  and  from  which  he  proceeds.  The  use 
of  this  term  is  not  meant  to  deny  the  well-known  fact  that  other 
groups,  e.g.,  the  Byzantine  Greek,  the  mediaeval  Latin,  the  Italian, 
proceed  upon  similar  lines  in  the  rhythmical  use  of  accent.  But  there 
are  differences  as  well  as  similarities  between  these  groups.  The 
Italian  tongue  does  not  employ  the  heavy,  hammering  stresses  of 
English  and  German;  nor  does  accent  appeal  to  the  Italian  ear  so 
exclusively  as  the  rhythm-producing  factor  in  its  poetry.  It  allows 
more  room  for  the  count  of  syllables  and  musical  pitch  as  well.2  At 
a  still  greater  remove  from  Germanic  usage  and  feeling  in  this  matter 
stands  the  French,  in  whose  oldest  Alexandrines  but  two  regular 
accents  (on  the  sixth  and  twelfth)  were  required  in  a  series  of  twelve 
full  syllables,3  the  count  of  syllables  seemingly  playing  the  chief  role 
in  the  production  of  rhythmically  measured  speech,  as  native  metri¬ 
cians  feel  to  be  the  case  in  Syriac.  There  are  other  affinities  between 
the  French  and  Syriac  languages,  the  sloughing  off  of  open,  final 
syllables,  a  strong  stress-accent  developing  into  a  prevailing  ultima- 
accent  of  much  less  vigor  (cf.  Brockelmann,  Syrische  Grammatik, 
§  36,  p.  21),  etc.  It  was  fitting,  therefore,  that  the  criticism  of 
Grimme  at  this  point  should  proceed  from  the  ranks  of  French 

1  Cr.  p.  147,  note  3. 

2  Cf.  H.  F.  Tozer  in  Edward  Moore’s  Textual  Criticism  of  the  “  Divina  Commedia"  and 
almost  any  book  or  treatise  on  Italian  prosody.  For  his  knowledge  on  Italian  and  French 
versification,  though  he  is  not  entirely  without  personal  experience  in  the  matter,  the 
author  is  greatly  indebted  to  Professor  C.  H.  Grandgent  of  Harvard  University. 

2  Cf.  Becq  de  Fouquieres,  Traite  general  de  versification  frangaise,  Paris,  1897 ;  Maurice 
Grammont,  Le  Vers  frangais,  Paris,  1913,  et  al.  If  my  ear  and  the  mutual  understanding 
of  myself  and  my  Chinese  friends  mistake  not,  the  Chinese  feeling  and  procedure  are 
nearer  to  the  French  than  to  the  Germanic. 


Antonius  Rhetor  on  Versification 


161 


scholarship.  Most  modestly  and  most  delicately  was  this  criticism 
made  by  Rubens  Duval,  for  many  years  before  his  death  the 
dean  of  French  Syriac  scholars,  in  the  Journal  asiatique,  9e  Serie, 
t.  VII  (1896),  pp.  162-68.  According  to  M.  Duval’s  feeling, 
Grimme  has  erred  in  not  distinguishing  the  prose  accent  or 
accent  of  intensity  from  the  prosodic  or  tonic  accent,  and  in 
dividing  the  Syriac  verse  into  a  mere  succession  of  accented  and 
unaccented  syllables,  instead  of  rhythmic  groups  or  measures  of 
syllables.  M.  Duval  has  written  more  extensively  on  Syriac  poetics 
and  poetry  in  the  same  journal,  same  series,  t.  X,  pp.  57-73,  and  in 
his  Litterature  syriaque,  3d  ed.,  pp.  10-23.  His  further  contributions 
to  the  science  in  these  publications,  and  in  his  latest  article  on  the 
subject,  “  Notice  sur  la  rhetorique  d’Antoine  de  Tagrit,”  in  Orienta- 
lische  Studien  Theodor  Noldeke  gewidmet,  I,  479-86,  will  be  presented 
more  extensively  a  little  farther  on. 

With  no  attempt  to  set  forth  a  system  of  his  own,  the  latest 
writer  on  the  subject,  Dom  J.  Jeannin,  criticizes  as  insufficient  the 
system  of  Grimme,  both  in  itself  and  as  complemented  by  Duval. 
Jeannin ’s  contribution  consists,  as  did  that  of  Dom  Parisot,  in  his 
Collection  de  chants  orientates ,  Paris,  1899,  and  in  various  other  works, 
before  him,  of  a  series  of  excellent  and  extensive  treatises  dealing 
with  the  church  music  of  the  Syriac-speaking  churches,  especially 
the  Maronites.  Jeannin’s  work  appeared  under  the  general  title, 
“Le  Chant  liturgique  syrien”  in  the  Journal  asiatique,  10e  Serie, 
t.  XX  (1912),  pp.  295-363  and  389-448;  and  lle  Serie,  t.  II  (1913), 
pp.  65-137,  including  in  its  last  part  a  section  on  “Rhythme 
musical  et  rhythme  poetique”  (pp.  74-111),  which  contains  among 
other  things  the  critique  of  Grimme  and  Duval  mentioned  above. 
Interesting  in  this  connection  is  the  statement  based  on  observation 
of  Maronite  practice  in  the  liturgical  chant,  that  “quant  aux  accents, 
c’est  bien  sur  les  syllabes  qu’indique  le  systeme  Grimme  qu’ils  sont 
en  realite  places,”  for  which  one  would  much  desire  to  see  tabulated 
lists.  In  any  case,  that  he  had  hit  upon  some  of  the  rules  of  modern 
Syriac  practice  was  known  in  some  measure  to  Grimme  himself 
and  was  only  natural  with  the  views  on  Syriac  accent  held  by  him. 

As  for  the  rules  governing  the  production  and  recitation  of 
classical  Syriac  poetry,  the  criticism  of  Jeannin  remains  true,  any 


162  The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages 

that  have  yet  been  formulated  are  insufficient  and  uncertain.  Nor 
can  they  be  otherwise,  unless  and  until  the  proper  foundations  are 
laid.  What  these  foundations  are  has  in  part  been  indicated  and 
in  part,  at  least,  indirectly  suggested.  One  of  the  prime  requisites 
are  texts,  especially  of  Ephrem  Syrus,  that  should  be  as  reliable  as 
they  can  be  made. 

Another  is  a  broader  knowledge  of  what  actually  does  and  what 
may  produce  the  feeling  of  rhythm  in  the  writing,  reciting,  chanting, 
or  singing  of  poetry,  ancient  and  modern,  and  greater  ability  and 
training  in  the  art  of  perceiving  these  rhythmical  elements  than  has 
yet  been  brought  to  bear  on  Syriac  or  any  oriental  poetry  (cf .  Schlott- 
mann,  op.  cit.).  To  Grimme,  by  his  own  confession,  a  certain  manner 
of  reading  poetry  sounds  like  the  ticking  of  a  telegraphic  instrument. 
To  the  French  ear,  unless  many  of  us  be  misinformed,  the  Germanic 
manner  of  conceiving  and  reciting  poetry,  the  Germanic  employment 
of  strong  stress-accents,  is  anything  but  pleasing,  a  fact  which  in  part 
accounts  for  the  exceptions  Duval  takes  to  Grimme’s  reading  of 
Syriac  poetiy.  He  whose  ear  cannot  perceive  without  displeasure, 
at  least,  these  two  kinds  of  poetic  rhythm,  the  French  and  Germanic, 
which  stand  very  nearly  at  opposite  poles  to  each  other,  should 
hardly  hold  himself  able  to  pass  judgment  on  what  may  or  may  not 
have  seemed  rhythmical  in  a  ‘‘dead”  language  or  a  past  and  gone 
phase  of  a  language.  This  art  of  hearing  must  for  our  purpose  be 
supplemented  by  the  best  attainable  knowledge  as  to  what  actually 
does  and  what  may  produce  the  feeling  of  rhythm,  especially  in  the 
writing,  reading,  recitation,  and  singing  of  poetry. 

For  such  information  the  student  will  probably  first  turn  to  the 
professional  metricians,  from  Aristoxenos  to  Riemann,  Sievers,  and 
Sidney  Lanier,  etc.  From  these  he  who  is  critically  inclined 
and  trained  will  take  leave  with  the  impression  that,  though  great  and 
delicate  powers  of  observation  and  statement  have  been  expended 
upon  many  of  their  pages,  yet  they  exhibit  not  infrequently  a  lack  of 
breadth  or  depth,  certainly  for  the  most  part  in  more  or  less  measure 
a  lack  of  scientific  control  of  their  experiences  and  observations, 
and  in  consequence  leave  with  the  reader  a  feeling  of  insecurity  and 
uncertainty  as  to  the  universal  validity  and  applicability  of  the  laws 
and  rules  formulated  by  them. 


Antonius  Rhetor  on  Versification 


163 


Rhythmic  feeling  being  a.  psychological  phenomenon,  it  is  to 
experimental  psychology  that  we  must  look  for  such  scientific  con¬ 
trol  of  our  “facts.”1  Without  presuming  to  pose  as  an  expert  in  this 
intricate  field,  or  even  as  a  second-hand  connoisseur  of  the  literature 
on  this  particular  subject,  the  writer,  upon  the  basis  of  a  rapid  review 
of  what  seemed  to  him  the  most  important  articles  and  essays,  would 
set  down  here  a  few  of  his  impressions  in  order  to  call  more  gen¬ 
eral  attention  to  the  importance  of  this  side  of  his  subject,  until 
those  who  are  competent  shall  speak  with  authority.2  First  may  be 
registered  a  general  impression,  which  would  be  less  needed  if  it  were 
more  heeded:  the  psychological  study  of  the  subject  up  to  date  has 
made  reserve  of  judgment  and  restriction  of  statement  more  impera¬ 
tive  than  ever.  The  work  of  the  psychological  experts  is  so  far  from 
offering  a  complete  solution  of  the  more  complicated  rhythmic 
structures  that  what  seems  to  be  the  best  and  most  advanced  exam¬ 
ination  of  the  simplest  rhythmic  phenomena,  that  by  Kurt  Koffka 
(op.  cit.),  distinctly  disclaims  finality.  Though  some  work  has  been 
done,  notably  by  Americans  and  Canadians,  on  poetic  rhythms, 
this  has  not  gone  far;  in  fact,  it  has  for  the  most  part  most  properly 
been  confined  to  particular  details,  because  precisely  the  rhythms 

1  My  attention  was  called  to  the  psychological  side  of  the  rhythmic  experience  and 
to  the  psychological  literature  on  the  subject  by  Professor  Karl  Schmidt,  head  of  the 
Department  of  Philosophy,  Tufts  College,  Medford,  Massachusetts. 

2  In  order  to  leave  no  one  under  any  misapprehensions  as  to  the  limitations  of  the 
writer,  and  in  order  to  facilitate  the  approach  of  younger  students,  a  list  of  books  and 
articles  more  or  less  resorted  to  by  the  writer  is  here  given:  (1)  General  works  on  psy¬ 
chology:  Grundzuge  der  Psychologie,  von  H.  Ebbinghaus,  3.  Aufl.  von  E.  Durr,  1911, 
pp.  522—24;  W.  Wundt,  Physiologische  Psychologie,  6.  Aufl.,  1911,  pp.  141—57  and  passim 
(cf.  Sachregister).  (2)  Special  articles  and  treatises:  Ernst  Meumann,  “  Untersuchungen 
zur  Psychologie  und  Asthetik  des  Rhythmus”  in  Philosophische  Studien,  Bd.  10  (1894), 
Heft  2,  pp.  249-322,  and  Heft  3,  pp.  393-430;  Tliaddaeus  L.  Bolton,  “Rhythm”  in 
American  Journal  of  Psychology,  VI;  Shaw  and  Wrinch,  “A  Contribution  to  the  Psy¬ 
chology  of  Time,”  University  of  Toronto  Studies,  Psychological  Series,  No.  2;  Hurst 
and  McKay,  “Experiments  on  the  Time  Relations  of  Poetical  Metres,”  ibid.,  No.  3; 
Scripture,  Studies  from  the  Yale  Psychological  Laboratory,  VII;  Margaret  K.  Smith, 
“  Rhythmus  und  Arbeit,”  Phil.  Stud.,  Bd.  16;  Eberhardt,  “  Zwei  Beitrage  zur  Psychologie 
des  Rhythmus  und  des  Tempo,”  Zeitschr.  fiir  Psych.,  XVIII;  Triplett  and  Sanford, 
“Studies  of  Rhythm  and  Metre,”  Amer.  Jour,  of  Psych.,  XII,  361-87;  C.  R.  Squire, 
“A  Genetic  Study  of  Rhythm,”  ibid.,  pp.  492-589;  Robert  MacDougall,  “Structure  of 
Simple  Rhythm  Forms,”  in  Miinsterberg’s  Harvard  Psychol.  Studies,  I  (1903),  309-411; 
R.  H.  Stetson,  “Rhythm  and  Rhyme,”  ibid.,  pp.  413-66;  Kurt  Koflka,  Experimentelle 
Untersuchungen  zur  Lehre  vom  Rhythmus,  Leipzig,  1908,  more  complete  in  Zeitschr. 
f.  Psych.  LII  (1909),  1-109;  Karl  Marbe,  Uber  den  Rhythmus  der  Prosa,  Giessen,  1904; 
H.  Unser,  Uber  den  Rhythmus  der  deutschen  Prosa,  Freiburger  Dissertation,  Heidelberg, 
1906;  Abram  Lipsky,  “Rhythm  as  a  Distinguishing  Characteristic  of  Prose  Style” 
in  Archives  of  Psychology,  New  York,  1907;  Paul  Kullmann,  Zeitschr.  f.  Psych.,  L1V 
(1909),  290  ff.;  M.  Beer,  ibid.,  LVI  (1910),  264  fl\;  A.  Prandtl,  ibid.,  LX  (1911),  26  ff. 


164  The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages 

of  poetry  are  one  of  the  most  complex  phenomena  in  the  whole  field 
of  rhythms.  What  has  been  done  is  sufficient  to  give  pause  to 
theorists  on  the  “only”  correct  method  of  reading  ancient  Syriac 
verse,  though  an  occasional  summing  up  of  our  knowledge  on  this 
as  on  other  subjects  and  even  a  bold,  intuitive  forward  thrust  may 
not  be  wholly  out  of  place. 

Even  though  we  assume  what  is  anything  but  generally  admitted, 
that  the  part  played  by  accent  is  exactly  alike  in  old  Syriac  and  in 
modern  Germanic  poetry,  the  case  is  not  so  simple  as  might  appear. 
The  fact  that  a  certain  method  of  reading  sounds  well  to  certain 
modern  ears  is  no  guaranty  that  it  correctly  represents  the  intention 
of  the  author  or  the  practice  of  early  readers.  If,  for  example, 
Grimme’s  readings  are  not  unlike  modern  Syriac,  it  is  a  well-known 
fact  that  Bickelhs  declamation  of  Hebrew  and  Syriac  verse  enthralled 
his  hearers  by  its  smoothness  and  beauty.  Very  instructive  is  an 
example,  adduced  by  Triplett  and  Sanford  (op.  cit.),  of  a  well-known 
nursery  rhyme,  which  may  with  equally  pleasing  effect  be  read  in 
three  different  ways: 

_L  S  3  3  4 

Sing  a  song  o’  six  pence  (or  six  pence), 

L  !L  3 

A  pocket  full  o’  rye; 
or 

1  3 

Sing  a  song  o’  six  pence, 
i  a 

A  pocket  full  o’  rye;  etc. 

But  the  similarity  of  old  Syriac  to  modern  Germanic  is  not  at  all 
certain — quite  the  opposite,  in  fact.  Before  we  can  be  certain  of 
anything  in  the  reading  of  classical  Syriac  poetry,  much  special 
investigation  is  still  needed.  Even  in  the  most  attractive  and 
promising  field  of  modern,  living  tongues  and  peoples,  whether  it  be 
the  task  of  the  psychologist  or  of  the  psychologically  trained  student 
of  modern  philology,  the  work,  especially  comparative  work,  has 
been  very  much  restricted  for  lack  of  interested  workers.  Some 
Japanese,  Slavs,  and  Latins  have,  indeed,  taken  part  in  a  few  of  the 
Wundtian  experiments,1  but  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the  people 
subjected  to  psychological  observation  and  experiment  have  been 

1  Wundt,  op.  cit..  Ill,  90,  n.  1. 


Antonius  Rhetor  on  Versification 


165 


of  Germanic  stock  and  rearing.  And  aside  from  the  fact  that  some 
of  Wundt’s  observations  have  been  partially  vitiated  by  precon¬ 
ceived  theories  (cf.  e.g.,  Squire,  op.  cit.),  his  as  well  as  other  investi¬ 
gations  have  thus  far  been  too  restricted,  not  only  in  number  and 
types  of  people  studied,  but  also  in  range  of  inquiry,  to  admit  of  any 
generalizing  conclusions  of  validity  and  value  on  the  varied  and 
composite  rhythms  of  poetry. 

The  part  played  by  elements  other  than  accent  in  creating  the 
impression  of  rhythm  is  far  from  clear  for  both  Latin  and  Germanic 
languages.  In  the  older  Romance  and  Germanic  poems,  just  as  in 
those  of  the  Syriac  poets,  the  end  of  the  verse,  sometimes  that  of  a 
half-verse,  coincides  with  logical  sense-divisions.  How  did  this 
help  the  sense  of  rhythm  ?  Was  it  in  turn  supposed  to  help  bring 
about  regularly  recurring  variations  in  pitch,  which  would  assist 
materially  in  marking  larger  or  smaller  rhythmic  groups  ?  Since  by 
the  unanimous  statements  of  all  the  native  metricians  the  counting 
of  syllables  played  so  large  a  role  in  the  writing  of  Syriac  verse,  is  it 
possible  that  in  poetry  produced  in  the  meticulously  artificial  studies 
of  an  Ephrem,  an  Antonius  Rhetor,  an  Ebedjesu,  a  Severus  bar 
Shakko,  the  visual  sense  was  meant  to  take  part  in  creating  a  sense 
of  symmetry  and  rhythm?  For  all  such  questions  the  preliminary, 
general  psychological ‘investigations  have  not  yet  been  completed. 
And  that  is  but  natural,  for  professional  psychologists  cannot  be 
expected  to  turn  to  what  for  them  is  a  remote  and  obscure  corner 
before  clearing  their  own  general  field.  In  order  that  this  particular 
work  may  be  more  expeditiously  concluded,  a  larger  proportion  of 
Semitists  must  turn  their  attention  to  experimental  psychology  than 
has  been  the  case  hitherto. 

But  before  the  problem  of  Syriac  meters  may  be  attacked  directly 
with  a  propitious  outlook  for  a  successful  solution,  there  remains  no 
small' amount  of  preliminary  work  to  be  done  in  Syriac,  in  the  fields 
of  linguistry,  literature,  and  history.  Not  only  tools  and  workers 
are  lacking,  but  materials  to  work  upon.  And  these  materials  must 
consist  of  more  than  rectified  texts  of  the  poets. 

Grimme  and  those  who  have  given  him  more  or  less  qualified 
assent  base  their  conclusions  upon  a  pure  and  simple  assumption 
with  regard  to  the  word-accent  of  classical  Syriac  prose.  This 


166  The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages 

assumption  rests  upon  no  secure  basis  of  known  facts.  Before 

plunging  farther,  therefore,  it  behooves  us  to  seek  for  such  facts. 

Up  to  the  present  this  has  been  done  energetically  and  effectively 

by  few  Semitic  scholars,  notably  Praetorius,  Philippi,  and  Carl 

Brockelmann.  BrockelmamTs  work,  which  sums  up  the  results  of 

his  predecessors,  has  been  severely  censured  and  even  light-heartedly 

rejected  in  some  quarters.  But  whether  his  results  be  finally  accepted 

or  no,  nevertheless  it  remains  that  he  has  vigorously  attacked  this 

knotty  problem  and  brought  to  bear  upon  it  all  the  resources  of  a 

•  * 

great  intellect  and  an  excellent  equipment.  Instead  of  carping 
censure,  this  pioneer  work  deserves  help,  be  it  by  fair  and  helpful 
criticism  or  be  it  by  supplementary  investigation. 

As  a  matter  of  history  the  relation  of  Syriac  hymn-writing  to 
music  demands  attention.  Parisot,  Jeannin,  and  a  few  others  have 
applied  themselves  to  the  task  With  excellent  results.  The  ultimate 
goal  has  hardly  been  attained.  Yet  the  task  is  an  important  one, 
if  we  wish  to  solve  the  problem  of  Syriac  rhythmization.  If  certain 
methods  of  reading  Syriac  poetry  sound  to  some  of  us  like  the  click¬ 
ing  of  a  telegraph,  perhaps  it  was  never  meant  to  be  read.  And  if 
it  was  written  to  be  sung,  then  it  must  be  remembered  that  musical 
accent  may  be  very  different  from  that  of  the  spoken  word;  the  two 
may  complement  each  other,  they  may  have  little  or  nothing  to  do 
with  each  other.1  Especially  hymns  written  to  fit  existing  tunes, 
even  in  modern  times,  are  frequently  by  no  means  faultless  in  this 
respect.  Now  the  kirrrri  which  served  the  Syriac  hymn-writers  as 
models  for  their  strophes  were  probably  in  many  cases  not  mere 
skeleton  frames  of  syllables  and  accents,  but  actual  tunes.2  If, 
therefore,  Ephrem  wrote  his  madrashas  upon  such  hirmi,  as  we 
positively  know  him  to  have  done  in  many  cases,  and  if,  as  we  have 
good  reason  to  believe,  he  laid  chief  stress  upon  their  being  sung,  and 
if,  further,  he  wrote  his  mimras  for  recitative  declamation  (the  times 
of  the  Gracchi  saw  flute-players  accompanying  or  at  least  giving  the 
pitch  to  orators  at  Rome)  rather  than  for  simple  reading,  is  it  not  at 

1  Cf.  R.  H.  Stetson,  op.  cit.;  Jeannin,  op.  cit.;  Frances  Densmore,  “Chippewa 
Music,’’  Bulletins  of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  Smithsonian  Institution,  Wash¬ 
ington,  D.C.,  Nos.  45  (1910)  and  53  (1913),  and  almost  any  collection  of  old  songs,  hymns, 
ballads,  etc. 

2  Cf.  Severus  bar  Shakko  in  Martin,  Metrique,  p.  33,  11.  15  ff. ;  the  translation,  p.  43, 
is  not  exact. 


Antonius  Rhetor  on  Versification 


167 


least  possible  that  he-  had  regard  in  his  composition  to  the  number 
of  syllables  only  and  to  accent  much  less  or  not  at  all  ? 

Finally,  if  we  wish  to  attain  any  reasonable  certainty  in  regard 
to  many  of  these  questions,  we  must  not,  as  has  frequently  been  done, 
utterly  ignore  the  older  Syriac  literature  on  the  subjects  of  versifi¬ 
cation  and  rhetoric.  We  may  distrust  the  modern,  native  writers 
named  in  the  earlier  pages  of  this  introductory  essay,  as  having  come 
too  much  under  the  influence  of  modern  Europe.  The  suspicion  is 
not  wholly  justified.  All  of  them  (Cardahi,  perhaps,  least,  being 
under  Arabic  influence)  exhibit  information  which  through  some 
channel,  in  whatever  dilution  and  distortion,  has  come  to  them  from 
the  older  masters  of  their  people.  The  dean  of  these  older  masters, 
the  man  who  claims  to  be  the  first  to  have  written  an  extended  and 
systematic  treatise  on  Syriac  versification,  Antonius  Rhetor  of 
Tagrit,  acknowledges  himself  indebted  to  the  Greeks  both  for  the 
impulse  to  write  and  for  his  models.1  But  this  indebtedness  does 
not  constitute  undue  influence;  in  this  manner  every  writer  is 
indebted  to  his  predecessors.  Antonius  learned  from  the  Greeks, 
he  did  not  merely  translate  and  copy  them,  as,  indeed,  he  could  not, 
his  material  differing  too  widely  from  theirs.  To  walk  your  own 
dogmatic  way  in  determining  what  may  or  may  not  have  been  the 
essence  of  Syriac  meters,  neglecting  totally  what  men  like  Antonius 
and  his  successors  wrote  on  the  subject,  will  not  do.  These  men  after 
all  register  for  us  in  a  most  compact  and  comprehensive  way  the  native 
thought  and  feeling  as  to  what  constitutes  poetry,  and  as  to  what  is 
demanded  and  what  is  permitted  in  Syriac  versification,  both  in  the 
rules  and  opinions  which  they  advocate,  and  in  those  which  they 
oppose.  Antonius,  moreover,  registers  and  describes  differences 
between  the  poetry  of  his  own  time,  the  ninth  century,  and  that  of 
the  period  which  we  have  called  the  classical.  Such  statements  and 
treatises  must  be  more  extensively  published  and  more  intensively 
studied  than  has  been  done  hitherto,  if  we  would  make  progress  in 
our  knowledge  of  Syriac  meters. 

1  It  is  not  improbable  that  among  the  factors  which  moved  Antonius  to  write  his 
treatise  was  the  desire  to  become  the  al-Halil  of  his  people.  He  does  not  say  so;  perhaps 
he  studiously  avoids  giving  any  such  impression.  But  the  dates  are  significant. 
Antonius  floruit  ca.  825-50  a.d.;  al-Halil  died  791;  Sibawaihi,  793  or  796;  al  Ahfas 
al  Ausat,  830  or  835.  It  is  well  to  recall  that  Severus  bar  Shakko,  also,  had  studied 
with  the  Arabic  master,  Kama!  ad-din  b.  Junus. 


168  The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages 

Again  the  names  of  two  French  scholars  appear  as  those  at  whose 
hands  this  side  of  the  subject  has  received  attention.  What  may 
be  called  the  first  native  statement  on  Syriac  meters,  Ephrem  Syrus, 
Adv.  Haer.,  Opp.  Syr.-Lat.,  II,  553  f.,  has  been  reprinted  three  times 
by  Duval,  though  in  fairness  August  Hahn  must  be  given  credit  for 
having  been  the  first  to  point  it  out  and  use  it  in  this  connection. 
Since  it  is  brief  and  admits  of  discussion,  it  may  here  find  a  place  both 

in  the  original  and  in  translation:  : 

j s  (.11©— .c-aa?  fi  :  |Z©a.1_aa.©:  fr^so  :  a vr P.  V 

:  ,  ,  A.A.’n^c  |jA©  :  wmls,.©£J?  cn-kLoo^  *  J?  'nrzz~A.£.  :  Ir. . 

3i  i  a. user:  ^»jA,cc  :  ooi  ws) ,  tlHe  [i.e.,  Bardai- 

san]  wrote  madrashas  and  provided  [literally  “mixed”]  them  with 
tunes;  he  composed  psalms  and  put  them  into  metrical  form 
[cf.  Appendix  I];  by  means  of  measures  and  balances  he  dis¬ 
tributed  the  words.  He  offered  to  the  guileless  bitter  things  in 
sweet  guise,  in  order  that,  though  feeble,  they  might  not  choose 
wholesome  food.  He  sought  to  emulate  David,  to  deck  himself 
out  in  his  graces;  that  like  him  he  might  be  extolled,  one  hundred 
and  fifty  psalms  did  he  too  compose.  His  truth  he  forsook,  my 
brethren,  and  imitated  his  number.”  What  is  translated  above 
“by  means  of  measures  and  balances,”  Duval  translates  “En 
mesures  et  en  poids,  il  divisa  les  mots,”  and  remarks,  “C’est-a- 
dire  il  divisa  les  vers  en  mesures  rythmees  et  accentuees.”  In 
this  as  in  another  interpretation  (cf.  Appendix  I)  he  follows 
Hahn,  somewhat  too  docilely,  it  would  seem.  The  one  like 
the  other  is  giving  exaggerated  value  to  a  casual  statement. 
Ephrem  never  intended  to  give  us  valuable  information  on 
Syriac  meters  and  their  history;  he  was  trying  to  express  contempt 
and  ridicule  for  Bardaisan  and  his  followers.  This  and  EphrenTs 
well-known  tendency  to  obscurity  in  the  simplest  matters  by  reason 
of  overcrowding  with  laborious  and  far-fetched  figures  of  speech 
should  have  warned  Duval,  if  not  Hahn,  not  to  ascribe  to  this  state¬ 
ment  a  meaning  which  would  make  it  unique  in  Syriac  metrical 
literature,  in  that  it  contained  so  much  as  a  reference  to  accent  in 
versification.  Besides,  this  is  at  best  a  specious  possibility;  the 


Antonius  Rhetor  on  Versification 


169 


probability  lies  elsewhere.  A  word  of  the  same  root  is  used  in 
Severus  bar  Shakko  (ed.  Martin,  p.  55,  n.  1,  1.  3)  to  designate  the 
count  of  syllables;  in  another  place  (p.  67, 1.  10)  another  form  is  used 
with  reference  to  the  proper  length  and  balance  of  clauses.  Why  then 
should  not  measures  in  Ephrem’s  statement  refer  to  the  measured 
count  of  syllables  within  each  verse,  and  scales  or  balances  (not 
weights)  to  the  arrangement  of  the  verses  in  parallel  distichs,  so 
frequent  in  Ephrem,  and  so  clear  in  the  hymns  of  the  Acts  of 
Thomas  ? 

A  much  more  extended  and  pretentious  publication  is  that  of  a 
large  part  of  the  section  on  metrics  from  the  Dialogues  of  Severus  bar 
Shakko  (ecclesiastical  name  Jacob,  of  Bartela — not  of  Tagrit,  bishop 
of  Mar  Mattai)  by  l’abbe  Martin  in  Abhandlungen  fur  die  Kunde 
des  Morgenla?ides,  VII1,  No.  2  (Leipzig,  1879).  This  is  of  consider¬ 
able  importance,  both  in  itself,  as  Severus  is  neither  stupid  nor  poorly 
educated,  and  because  it  makes  use,  at  times  verbatim  or  nearly  so, 
of  the  similar  treatise  by  Severus’  predecessor,  Antonius  of  Tagrit, 
a  fact  which  Duval  was  first  to  observe.  Appendix  II  of  this  essay 
gives  a  description  of  a  Harvard  manuscript,  which  contains  a  por¬ 
tion  of  these  Dialogues ,  and  a  collation  of  the  Harvard  text  with 
Martin’s,  together  with  a  few  corrections  of  Martin’s  translation. 

There  remains  to  be  mentioned  only  one  further  publication  and 
the  promise  of  a  publication  by  Duval.  In  Orientalische  Studien 
Theodor  Noldeke  gewidmet,  I,  479-86,  Duval  announced  that  after 
an  unsuccessful  attempt  to  prepare  for  publication  the  insufficient 
fragments  contained  in  British  Museum  MS  Add.  17208  (described 
in  Wright’s  Catalogue,  p.  614),  he  had  succeeded  in  securing  a  good 
copy,  written  in  1904  by  Elias,  son  of  Deacon  Homo,  deceased,  of 
Alqosh,  of  a  Mosul  manuscript  of  the  Rhetoric  of  Antonius  Rhetor 
of  Tagrit,  which  was  fragmentary  only  in  the  last  section,  where  it 
was  spoiled  by  moisture  and  gnawed  by  mice.  He  published  in 
the  same  essay  the  title  of  the  whole  volume  and  the  chapter  and 
book  headings,  both  in  Syriac  and  in  translation,  and  a  few  sentences 
of  one  or  more  colophons  in  translation  only.  At  the  end  he  refers 
to  M.  Manna’s  Morceaux  choisis  de  la  litterature  arameenne,  Mossoul, 
Imprimerie  des  Peres  Dominicains,  1902,  in  the  second  part  of 
which  (pp.  95  ft.)  a  few  extracts  from  the  Mosul  manuscript  are 


170  The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages 

published;  a  copy  of  this  work,  which  was  secured  by  the  University 
of  Chicago  Libraries,  while  this  essay  was  in  print,  shows  that  none 
of  the  extracts  printed  by  Manna  are  from  the  fifth  book  here  pub¬ 
lished.  In  his  Litterature  syriaque  (3d  ed.,  1907,  p.  300,  n.  2), 
Duval  promised  a  speedy  publication  of  the  entire  text  of  the 
Rhetoric  in  Chabot’s  Corpus  Scriptorum  Christianorum  Orientalium. 
The  promise  lapsed,  so  far  as  he  personally  was  concerned,  with 
the  death  of  the  revered  master  on  May  10,  1911.  Nor  has 
anyone  else  up  to  the  present  writing  fulfilled  it  in  his  stead.  In 
the  meantime  the  writer  found  in  the  Semitic  Museum  Library  of 
Harvard  University,  among  the  Syriac  and  Karshuni  manuscripts 
purchased  for  the  library  by  Professor  David  Gordon  Lyon  from 
J.  Rendel  Harris,  a  similar  manuscript  of  Anthony’s  Rhetoric. 
The  description  and  the  collation  with  Duval’s  published  text-frag¬ 
ments  which  follow  will  show  that  this  manuscript  is  not  inferior  to 
that  of  Duval.  The  writer  is  happy  to  be  able  in  the  following  pages 
to  contribute  his  iota  of  help  to  M.  Duval’s  literary  heir  or  heirs. 
It  is  in  no  wise  the  intention  of  the  writer  to  steal  a  march  on  M. 
Chabot  or  anyone  else  who  has  undertaken  the  work  in  the  stead  of 
M.  Duval.  These  times  of  all  times  would  be  the  least  fitting  for 
such  a  coup.  “High”  politics  and  wars  and  opinions  of  wars  and 
warring  parties  need  not  and  should  not  interfere  with  such  calm  and 
peaceful  onward  march  of  science  as  is  possible  under  the  circum¬ 
stances,  nor  with  international  intercourse  and  the  courtesies  which 
govern  the  relations  between  men  following  scientific  pursuits  in 
times  of  peace.  What  follows  is  a  description  of  the  Harvard  manu¬ 
script  with  a  translation  of  the  colophons,  a  collation  of  the  general 
title  and  the  headings  with  those  published  by  Duval,  and  the  text 
of  the  fifth  book  of  the  Rhetoric,  which  is  avowedly  a  treatise  on  versi¬ 
fication.  Against  the  description  and  collation  no  objection  can  be 
made  on  any  score.  The  text  is  published  purely  as  manuscript 
text,  not  as  an  edited  text.  The  publication  is  made  primarily  to 
enable  the  French  editors  to  use  this  manuscript  for  their  edition. 
The  writer  believes  that  this  is  a  legitimate  function  of  scientific 
journals,  which  might  well  be  made  use  of  more  freely.  And  until 
the  final  text  be  published,  this  may  serve  as  a  makeshift  text  for 
such  as  need  or  desire  this. 


Antonius  Rhetor  on  Versification 


171 


If  the  writer  has  criticized  French  work,  neither  has  he  spared 
German  where  he  found  it  in  error;  and  he  hopes  that  he  has  given 
to  all  alike  due  appreciation.  Finally  the  writer’s  own  work  is 
herewith  laid  open  to  any  criticism  which  its  fault  or  faults  may  merit, 
so  that  only  the  cause  of  science,  which  is  dear  to  his  heart,  be 
advanced  thereby. 

DESCRIPTION  OF  THE  HARVARD  MANUSCRIPT  OF  ANTHONY  OF  TAGRIT’s 

RHETORIC 

The  Harvard  manuscript,  Semitic  Museum  No.  4057  (formerly 
Cod.  Syr.  122  of  J.  Rendel  Harris’  collection),  is  a  paper  manuscript, 
containing  113  leaves,  23.8X16.5  cm.,  in  12  gatherings  of  5  double 
leaves,  except  the  first,  which  consists  of  2,  and  the  last,  which  con¬ 
sists  of  4|  (5+4).  From  the  second  to  the  twelfth  the  gatherings 
are  numbered  in  Estrangelo  letters,  )-+ ,  at  the  beginning  and  end 
of  each,  the  first  at  the  end  only,  and  the  last  at  the  beginning  only; 

bear  in  addition  the  Arabic  numerals,  ^  ,  !♦ ,  and  tt ;  the  second 
^and  the  first  ]  are  drawn  in  outline  only,  not  filled  in.  Two  folio- 
numberings  run  through  the  book,  one  in  the  upper  left-hand  corner 
of  every  recto,  1-113,  is  penciled  in  occidental  numbers  in  J.  Rendel 
Harris’  hand;  the  other  in  the  lower  left-hand  corner  of  rectos  from 
fob  6  to  107  bears  the  Syriac  letters  from  ^  to  w^o ,  supplemented 
twice  only  (a xu ,  ‘h  and  j-o ,  M)  by  Arabic  numerals.  Catchwords 
insure  the  proper  sequence  from  verso  to  recto,  that  of  fol.  916  being 
omitted  at  the  beginning  of  92a  (cf.  the  printed  text).  Rulings  on 
versos  mark  lines  (24  on  each  page)  and  margins;  on  fob  6a  all  mar¬ 
gins  are  bounded  by  an  inked  frame;  fob  56,  the  initial  page  of  the 
book,  bearing  the  title  also,  is  elaborately  ruled  in  little  squares.  An 
ornamental  design  is  blocked  out  in  black  ink  on  this  page,  but  only 
partially  filled  in  in  colors  (red  and  light  brown),  depicting  a  sort  of 
hanging,  arched,  oriental  gateway  for  the  book  to  enter.  The  paper, 
of  a  kind  much  in  use  in  the  modern  Orient,  is  stamped  with  a  water¬ 
mark,  consisting  on  some  pages  of  a  shield-shaped  escutcheon  with 
double  outline  bearing  in  the  center  a  crescent  with  fanciful  human 
face,  on  others  of  the  Italian  legend  Cartiera  de  Mori  and  under  this 
Vittorio. 

The  book  is  bound  in  light-green  cloth  with  back  and  corners 
of  dark-green  sheepskin.  Heavy  guards  and  fly-leaves  have  been 


172  The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages 

supplied  by  the  binders,  who  have  set  their  mark,  “Bound  by  Wilson 
&  Son,  Cambridge,’’  on  the  inside  of  the  left  guard.  The  title  is 
printed  in  gold  on  the  back  between  the  second  and  third  of  eight 
pairs  of  lines:  Antoninus  (sic!)  Rhetor  of  Taghrith.  On  the  inside 
of  the  right-hand  cover  is  pasted  J.  Rendel  Harris’  bookmark. 

The  first  four  leaves  were  left  blank  and  unpumiced,  though 
ruled  by  the  original  scribe.  At  the  top  of  fol.  la,  however,  the 
legend  Cod.  Syr.  122  and  thereunder  Antonins  Rhetor  of  Taghrith 
on  Rhetoric  is  written  in  J.  Rendel  Harris’  hand,  and  under  this 
Semitic  Museum  No.  ^057  in  the  handwriting  of  Professor  D.  G. 
Lyon.  Fol.  5 a  contains  the  table  of  contents  and  a  colophon,  trans¬ 
lated  below.  On  foil.  5 6  to  107a  is  written  as  much  of  the  Rhetoric 
of  Anthony  of  Tagrit  as  is  known  to  be  preserved:  Book  1  on  foil. 
5a-556;  Book  2,  556-656;  Book  3,  656-72a;  Book  4,  72a-876; 
Book  5,  88a-107a;  1076-1136  are  ruled  and  pumiced  but  left  blank. 

Large  lacunae  occur  on  fol.  616  in  the  midst  of  Book  2,  19  lines, 
•  .*  •  . 

.  2u4^i-o  to  *1-^.  |j  1  foil.  656/66a  at  the  very 

■j  •  .  \  . 

•  •  •  •  •  • 

beginning  of  Book  3,  to  jZoJ-kZu^:  ; 

fol.  756/76 a,  22  lines,  ^  to  oj  |?orlL.  :  .  The 

*  •  • 

lacunae  of  Book  5  will  be  found  in  the  printed  text.  Minor  lacunae 
from  one  word  to  a  line  or  more  are  found  here  and  there  in  the  last 
four  books,  increasing  in  frequency  and  size  toward  the  close.  The 
incipit  will  be  found  in  the  collation  compared  with  Duval’s  text; 

v  *\ 

explicit,  fol.  107a,  1.  21:  >cu^|  A  marginal 

note,  which  closes  the  book,  is  translated  below. 

The  Karshuni  colophon  on  fol.  5a  reads  as  follows: 

Now  is  this  valuable  book  completed  by  the  kindness  of  God,  exalted 
is  he,  the  one,  the  eternal,  in  the  j^ear  1895  a.d.,  which  corresponds  to  the 
year  2207  Greek,  in  Tishri  II,  by  the  weak  and  lowly  deacon  Matthaeus, 
son  of  Bulus,  of  old  Syrian  [faith].  And  he  wrote  it  in  the  city  of  Mosul, 
the  famous,  in  Assyria,  whose  capital  is  Niniveh.  And  we  toiled  exceedingly, 
when  we  found  this  book,  entitled  the  Book  of  Anthony  of  Tagrit,  of  which 
mention  is  made  in  the  book  of  the  History  of  Mar  Gregory  Barhebraeus 
Abu-’l-Farag.  It  was  in  the  days  of  Alar  Dionysius  the  Tellmahrensian, 
in  the  year  1136  Greek  [  =  825  a.d.],  at  that  time  lived  this  chaste  monk  and 
excellent  priest,  “ there  was  the  excellent  mo7ik  and  priest,  Mar  Anthony  the 


Antonius  Rhetor  on  Versification 


173 


Tagritensian,  Rhetor,”1  of  good  repute  and  well  known  in  his  time,  as  Mar 
Gregory  writes  of  him.  And  as  for  the  book  from  which  we  copied,  it  was 
damaged  [read  >00,^0  for  90,^0,  “counted”!]  by  the  rain  and  water  and 
eaten  by  mice  and  of  ancient  date  and  worn  with  time  and  old  age.  He 
who  wrote  it  was  named  Dioscoros  in  Tur  Abdin  ’Arbaya,  son  of  Shimeon, 
in  the  year  1714  Greek  [  =  1403  a.d.].  And  as  for  the  places  which  were 
damaged  and  destroyed  by  the  gnawing  of  mice,  we  have  left  blank  space 
in  their  stead,  in  the  hope  that  perhaps  another,  supplementary  manuscript 
might  be  found,  whence  we  might  supply  the  gaps.  As  for  this  manuscript, 
we  found  it  in  the  monastery  of  the  holy,  the  excellent,  the  famous  [monas¬ 
tery  of]2  Sheikh  Mattai  in  Mt.  ?  Aloof, 3  and  as  we  found  it,  so  we  carefully 
copied  it.  And  now  we  humbly  beg  of  every  father  and  teacher  who  hap¬ 
pens  upon  this  writing,  let  him  not  cast  blame  upon  us,  but  let  him  seize 
the  opportunity  for  meritorious  works  and  say:  Oh  God,  oh  thou,  who 
spreadest  out  the  earth  and  raisest  up  the  heavens,  forgive  thy  servant,  the 
deacon  Matthew,  the  writer  of  these  ugly  characters.  And  if  he  discover 
error  or  oversight,  let  him  correct  them,  for  no  one  is  perfect  save  God  alone. 
“  And  let  Mary,  the  mother  of  God,  remember  and  all  the  saints”  Amen. 

At  the  end  of  the  table  of  contents  is  given  the  reference:  “The 
dating  of  the  ancient  book  from  which  we  made  this  copy  is  on  fob 
83,”  and  under  this,  in  Arabic  letters  and  numerals,  is  repeated  the 
date  of  the  present  copy:  1895  a.d.  On  fob  87  (old  count  83)  b,  11. 
21-25,  at  the  end  of  Book  4,  are  found  the. following  notes:  (1)  in 
red,  1.  21,  Karshuni:  “This  is  the  dating  of  the  book  from  which  we 
copied”;  (2)  in  black,  small  and  cramped,  beginning  of  h  22:  “The 
dating  of  the  ancient  book,  thus  is  it”;  (3)  in  black,  11.  22-24,  in 
Syriac:  904?  .  ]G wic 090-0102..*  9  hoo_**.o  0^0;  -*.«]  o| 

Tgr.',.  AX*.  U^o  U-o 

i-M-c-.A  ](3l-43c  ❖  b*Jo_o  j-ai^z\-£9|o  ;  (4)  in  black,  1.  35,  in  Arabic:  “  1714 

Greek  year.”  At  the  very  end  of  the  book  is  written  a  marginal 
note,  similar  to  many  others  accompanying  the  lacunae  throughout, 
fob  107a:  “From  here  until  its  end  the  book  from  which  we  copied 
is  wanting;  for  it  was  an  old  book.”  The  note  is  in  Syriac. 

1  Words  in  italics  and  inclosed  in  quotation  marks  both  here  and  below  are  written 
in  Syriac. 

2  The  words  in  square  brackets  are  an  interlinear  “correction.” 

3  Jebel  ’Aloof  should  be  read  Jebel  ’Alfaf,  i.e.,  Jebel  Al-Maqloob;  cf.  Duval,  Or. 
Stud.  Th.  Moldeke  gew.,  I,  486.  On  the  monastery  and  mountain  cf.  Georg  Hoffmann, 
“  Ausziige  aus  syr.  Akten  pers.  Mart.,”  Abh.  f.  d.  Kunde  des  Morg.,  VII,  3,  p.  19,  n.  142; 
p.  175,  n.  1371;  p.  194,  n.  1533;  Felix  Jones,  “Notes  on  the  Topography  of  Niniveh”  in 
Selections  from  the  Records  of  the  Bombay  Government ,  No.  43  (1857),  p.  599;  Badger,  The 
Nestorians  arid  Their  Ritual,  I  (1852),  95;  Ritter,  Erdkunde,  9,  572;  Yaqut,  2,  694. 


174  The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages 

The  following  collation  with  the  portions  of  Duval's  copy  pub¬ 
lished  in  the  Or.  Stud.  Th.  Noldeke  gew.  will  show  that  the  Harvard 
text  is,  to  say  the  least,  not  inferior  to  Duval's. 

Parallels  between  Antonius  Rhetor  and  Severus  bar  Shakko, 
i.e.,  unacknowledged  quotations  of  Severus  bar  Shakkofrom  Antonius, 
occur  as  follows:1  A(ntonius)  92a,  11-14  =  S(everus),  11,  11-13; 
A  92a,  15—926,  8  =  S  11,  15—13,  1  (A  92a,  20,  cf.  S  11,  9f.;  A  926, 
5,  cf.  S13, 1,2);  A  926,  17-19  =  S  11,  9-11;  A926,  23,  24  =  S13,  4-7; 
A  93a,  1-18  =  S  13,  10—14,  6;  A  93a,  21  =S  13,  5;  A  93a,  22  =  S  13, 
7  f.;  A  93a,  23f.=S  14,  8  f . ;  A  936,  1-3=S  14,  10-12;  A  94a,  24  = 
S23,  n.  2, 11.  6f.;  A  946,  1  =S  23,  3;  A946  2  =  S58,  1;  A946,4-7  = 
S  24,  n.  7;  A  946,  7  =  S  58,  2  (cf.  n.  1);  A  946,  12  =  S  25,  If  A  946, 
14-16  =S  26,  2-4;  A  95a,  1=S  25,  10;  A  95a,  14,  15  =  S  26,  1;  956, 
6+  956,  11  =S  14,  18;  956,  12-19  =S  14,  19—15,  2  (Antonius’ 
text,  as  used  by  Severus,  seems  to  have  been  already  defective); 
96a,  23,  24,  966,  1-4  =  S  27,  n.  3;  966-996  are  in  general  parallel  to 
S  27-31,  but  in  detail  little  or  no  verbal  agreement  is  to  be  found; 
996,  13/14  =S  31,  5,  6;  996,  17— 100a,  4=S  31,  7-32,  15;  100a, 
5  =  S  34,  13  (100a,  5,  6  =  S  33,  If.  ?);  100a,  6-23  =  S  34,  15-35, 
14;  1016,  4/5  =  S  36,  13;  1016,  7-14  =S  36,  14-20;  102a,  16  =  S  37, 
1;  102a,  18,  19  =  S  37,  2;  102a,  22,  23  =  S  37,  2,  3. 

COLLATION  OF  HARVARD  MS  OF  ANTONIUS  RHETOR  TAG- 

RITENSIS  WITH  DUVAL’S  TEXT 

The  symbol  H  is  used  for  the  Harvard  manuscript. 

-f- 

Above  the  title  is  written,  in  red  like  the  title:  oi - * 

In  title,  :  H  i-szL= ;  jjost  h--*-**r  H  add.  .  ;  post  H  add. 

•  .*  •  ••  • 

;  post  H  add.  :  H  H  ; 

:  H  ;  H  om.  .  ^*.v)  . 

chap,  i:  ha-d :  H  j-M . 

chap,  ii:  |Zoj-£cn* :  H  jZoj4u*si9  (and  so  throughout,  unless  otherwise 
noted) . 

••  • 

chap,  iv:  :  H  ;  -  iftNnio:  H  . 

chap,  v:  .  H  • 

1  Severus  is  quoted  by  page  and  line  of  Martin’s  edition;  Antonius  by  page  and  line 
of  the  Harvard  manuscript. 


Antonius  Rhetor  on  Versification 


175 


chap,  ix:  post  H  add.  . 

chap,  x:  :  H  v  sa ;  001 :  H  c<n  . 

chap,  xi:  :  #  ;  post  ^oUaajs  H  add.  ocn  . 

chap,  xii:  H  (as  chap,  x,  and  so  throughout,  unless  otherwise 

noted). 

chap,  xiii:  H  s  ;  waaiufc-l  :  H  . 

chap,  xiv:  i-xa\c?l? :  H  j-aiZZLao]?  ;  H  -iiliao . 
chap,  xv :  |Zol^j-$-o9:  H  jZaJj^-i^uo . 

•  • 

chap,  xvi:  ^^^-*-1  r*^  •  7/  t-^—- 

•  • 

chap,  xvii:  ooi  (1):  H  ooi?;  :  H  |ZaZ Ltax  (i.e.,  donne  abort- 

•  • 

dance  a,  enrichit,  not  with  Duval  abaisse  [?]). 

chap,  xviii:  an^xa^j^  with  marginal  note  |A-*o-*Z:  H  ■  with 

]£u*3^*Z  (71  . 

chap,  xix:  H  has  marginal  note  as  for  xviii,  but  in  sg. 

’  V 

chap,  xxi:  j-Zsc©|o^s5  :  H  U^c]j>£5 . 
chap,  xxii:  ante  «--»i  ,ms  H  add.  ? . 

chap,  xxiii:  jcn^ea^:  H  IcnL^cu* ;  the  list  of  examples  given  by  Duval 

under  this  chapter  is  not  exhaustive;  this  is  misleading,  since  Duval’s  list 
covers  but  one  of  five  methods  of  the  use  of  names.  Duval’s  translation 
is  faulty,  resting  upon  his  reading  of  the  sg.  joiioa-*  ;  not  “qui  a  lieu  par  la 

denomination  tiree  des  faits,”  but  “which  through  names  proceeds  to  facts.” 

/  • 

chap,  xxv :  U-d  :  H  U*d  . 

•  / 

V 

chap,  xxvi:  ante  H  add.  ?;  >»ru.jZa o-^:  H  H  om. 

(2). 

chap,  xxx :  ante  jZ-AZjZ©  H  add.  Uv=©;  this  will  again  change  Duval’s 

translation  for  better  sense  in  view  of  the  “double  exhortation,”  which  one 
is  led  to  expect;  not  “instructive  sous  forme  de  recit,”  but  “sous  forme  de 
recit  et  par  procede  instructif.”  This  corresponds  to  the  facts  in  chap.  xxx. 

Closing  formula  of  Book  1 :  post  H  add.  90^*9  ;  post 

/  5  • 

II  add.  (-1-03-2  ;  II  om.  .  jl^v]  a-  <tu*Izo  . 

•  •  : 

Title,  Book  2:  post  H  add.  .  Uj-oo  U^a.3  b^^^Z;  ocn  : 

v  :  •• 

H  qJl ;  H  . 


Title,  Book  3:  £d^z?:  H  |A.^z*;  L*zz*^z:  H  . 


THE  TEXT  OF  ANTONIUS  RHETOR’S  TREATISE  ON  SYRIAC  PROSODY  AS  FOUND  IN  H 


176 


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APPENDIX  I 
I 

In  order  to  give  English  readers,  who  are  not  specialists  in  Syriac,  an 
adequate  idea  of  the  poetic  fragments  of  Bardaisan  preserved  to  us  and  of 
the  manner  of  their  preservation,  it  has  been  thought  best  to  append  here 
an  English  translation  of  the  only  one  of  his  extant  works  in  which  Ephrem 
Syrus  makes  direct  quotations  from  the  poems  of  Bardaisan,  the  55th  Mad- 
rasha  or  Hymn  against  Heresies  ( Opera  Omnia ,  Syr.-Lat.,  t.  II,  557  f.). 
The  only  other  place  where  what  seems  to  be  a  line  of  poetry  is  quoted  from 
the  works  of  Bardaisan  is  the  fragment  of  a  Philoxenus  letter  printed  by 
Cureton  in  the  introduction  to  his  Spicilegium  Syriacum ,  which  will  be  found 
both  in  Syriac  and  in  translation  following  Ephrem’s  madrasha  in  this 
appendix. 

The  attempt  has  been  made  to  preserve  in  the  English  the  five-syllable 
verse  of  the  original,  maintained  throughout  except  in  vss.  29  f.  and  vs.  61, 
on  which  see  the  footnotes.  The  exact  contents  of  each  line  could  not,  of 
course,  be  transferred  into  English  in  anything  worthy  the  name  of  trans¬ 
lation.  The  number  of  lines,  however,  both  for  the  whole  poem,  and  for  the 
larger  logical  sections,  such  as  would  be  closed  by  a  period,  interrogation, 
or  exclamation  point,  have  been  scrupulously  maintained.  The  sense- 
divisions  do  not  at  all  points  bear  out  Lamy’s  classification  of  this  hymn 

O  V  V  7 

(IV,  494,  No.  74)  under  the  strophic  model  of  ,  i.e.,  its 

fellow,  Adv.  Haer.  56, 1  which  exhibits  a  strophe  of  11  five-syllable  verses. 
This  may  be  due  to  a  corrupt  text,  printed  in  the  Roman  editio  princeps, 
which  certainly  omitted  or,  at  least,  failed  to  distinguish  from  the  body  of 
the  poem  the  refrain  which  almost  certainly  belongs  there.  We  cannot  but 
follow  the  printed  text,  numbering  the  verses  consecutively,  and  marking 
the  logical  sense-divisions,  which  in  most  cases  do  fall  naturally  into  eleven¬ 
line  strophes.  The  translation  follows: 


Pray,  oh  my  brethren, 
For  Bardaisan’s  sons, 
That  no  more  they  rave, 
Saying,  like  infants, 


5  Something  went  forth,  came 
Down  from  life’s  father; 
And  a  mystic  son 
The  mother  conceived 


1  It  was  a  note  concerning  this  “tune”  which  was  misread  by  the  Roman  editor, 

zc  0  V  V  V  0  «s 

Father  Benedict  ( Opera  O  mnia,  Syr.-Lat.  t.  Ill,  128  AB) :  ^  -  *’  r  ~  ^ 

,  which  in  somewhat  halting  Hebraic  Syriac  would  mean: 

“  Finished  are  seventeen  hymns  according  to  the  tunes  of  the  songs  of  Bardaisan.”  The 
able  Hahn  ( Bardesanes  Gnosticus,  32  f.)  was  misled  by  this  reading  to  find  here  corrective 
corroboration  of  the  statement  of  Sozomenus  referred  to  below  (pp.  199  ff.),  which 
makes  the  songs  of  that  mysterious  son  of  Bardaisan,  Harmonius,  models  for  those  of 
Ephrem.  Lamy  has  shown  (op.  cit..  Ill,  Proleg.,  IV,  475/6,  n.  4)  that  the  correct 
reading  merely  states  that  the  seventeen  hymns,  Nos.  49-65,  Adversus  Scrutatores,  follow 

P  A  A  m  A 

the  tune  and  strophic  model  of  01^^  ,  “Sect  of  Bardaisan,”  the  opening 

words  of  hymn  No.  56,  Adversus  Haereses. 


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197 


And  bare,  called  life’s  child. 

10  O  holy  Jesus, 

Praise  to  thy  father!  (11) 

He  says,  in  no  wise 
May  one  alone  bud, 

Be  fruitful,  and  bear. 

15  Our  Lord’s  own  nature 
He  claims  born  of  two 
By  mystic  union. 

Our  Lord,  whose  body 
Of  two  was  not  born! 

20  How  spotless  must  be 
His  divine  nature, 

Which  is  light  from  light!  (11) 
Who  would  not  stop  his 
Ears,  not  to  hear  them 
25  Say,  the  Holy  Ghost 

Brought  forth  two  daughters. 
Their  words  make  her1 2  say 
To  these  in  deep  love: 

“Be  she  that  follows  thee 
30  My  daughter,  thy  sister .  ' 

Shame  were  it  to  tell, 

How  she  waxed  pregnant. 

Jesus,  cleanse  my  mouth!  (11) 
Lo,  my  tongue  defiled 
35  Their  secret’s  telling!  (13) 

Two  daughters  she  bare: 

One,  the  dry  land’s  shame; 

One  water’s  image.3 
See,  how  they  blaspheme! 

40  No  mean  demon’s  form 
In  water  appears; 

How  shall  it  mirror 
Forth  the  pure,  mystic 


Holy  Ghost’s  nature, 

45  Which  even  in  mind 

Cannot  be  pictured?4  (11) 

He  says:  “When  again 
Shall  we  see  thy  feast,5 
And  behold  the  maid, 

50  The  daughter,  to  whom 

On  thy  knee  thou  croon’ st”  ?  (or  .) 
He  proves  by  his  songs, 

Vile  in  lullabies, 

Womanish  in  lilts, 

55  That  he  soils  the  fair 
Holy  Spirit’s  name, 

Which  is  alway  pure.  (11) 
Enough  of  reproach 
Is  their  secret  song 
60  Of  her  now,  who  says : 

“My  God  and  prince,  hast  left  me 
lone  f”  (or  .)6 
Ashamed  of  his  vice 
He  clothes  his  song  in 
A  psalm’s  beauteous  form, 

65  Chaste,  holy— -which  spake 
Our  Lord:  “God,  my  God, 

Why  hast  thou  left  me?”7  (10,  or 
counting  61  as  2,  11) 

Professing  to  teach 
From  Moses,  the  law, 

70  He  scoffs  Moses’  words: 

/ 

“  The  chief  est  delight 
Whose  gates  by  command 
To  mother  are  oped.” 

In  a  place  of  shame 
75  He  puts  paradise. 

The  clear  law  reproves 


1  The  word  for  “ghost”  or  “spirit”  is  in  Syriac  feminine;  used  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
it  is  later  commonly  masculine,  in  this  context  consistently  feminine. 

2  A  distich  of  six-syllable  verses ;  cf .  following  note. 

3  Nau,  Patrologia  Syriaca,  II,  504,  footnote,  says  of  verses  29-38:  “Auctor  trans¬ 
lation^  latinae  ilia  verba  non  intellexit.  Hilgenfeld  [pp.  40-42]  credit  se  intellegere.  Cer- 
tum  ne  est  ipsummet  Sanctum  Ephrem  versus  Bardesanitarum  [p.  557C]  intellexisse 
et  expressisse?  ....  legi  potest:  Filia  pedis  tui  (femoris  tui)  erit  mihi  Alia  et  tibi 

soror . Genuit  duas  Alias:  aliam  terram  miserabilem  et  alteram  conAgurationem 

(congregationem)  aquarum.”  Cf.  Gen.  1:9—10. 

4  Cf.  II  Cor.  3:18;  Hymn  of  the  Soul,  distich  76-78,  and  G.  Hoffmann’s  remarks 

on  the  latter  in  ZfNTW,  IV  (1903),  4,  288. 

6  Or  “  We  shall”;  “thy"  is  feminine. 

«  One  eight-syllable  verse,  or  distich  of  four-syllable  verses. 

3  Ps.  22:2;  Mark  15:34  and  parallels. 


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As  in  a  mirror 

Their  hateful  teaching.  (11) 

He  hates  paradise, 

SO  The  blest,  of  the  saint,1 
And  lauds  another, 

A  place  of  reproach, 

Which  gods  have  laid  out, 

Father  and  mother 
85  In  union  planted, 

By  footsteps  seeded. 

In  the  par’dise  tale 
Their  judge2  is  Moses, 

For  he  wrote  not  so.  (11) 

90  In  Eden  there  placed 
The  Lord  paradise.3 
But  one4  Moses  preached; 

Two  this  one  proclaims, 

Which  gods  have  laid  out 
95  In  a  place  I  blush 
To  mention  by  name. 

The  snake  that  seduced 
Adam  in  the  tree 
Deceived  this  man  in 

The  Philoxenus  passage,  in  which  a  line,  probably  poetic,  of  Bardaisan’s 
is  quoted,  is  one  of  several  fragments  published  by  Cureton  in  his  Spicile- 
gium  Syriacum  (London,  1855,  pp.  vf.),  from  a  manuscript  in  the  British 
Museum  No.  12164.  Further  than  these  few  fragments  nothing  has  ever 
been  published  of  this  treatise.  The  third  of  the  quotations  reads  in  Cure- 

ton’s  edition  as  follows:  ooi  lloi.  ]?si  ^>j 

giZn ]Znl VojL  ti _ —  |  ooi  W  <nX\n± 

-^—^5  oi\nAo  ,  i.e.,  “So  then  this  also  ‘The 

Ancient  of  Eternity8  is  an  infant/  not  did  we  take  it  from  Bardaisan,  but  he 
used  it  artfully  to  conceal  his  error,  and  he  took  it  from  us,  i.e.,  from  the 
ecclesiastical  teaching.” 

1  I.e.,  Moses. 

2  Literally:  opponent. 

3  Gen.  2:8,  10,  15. 

4  I.e.,  one  paradise. 

5  II  Macc.  12:38—45;  cf.  Testament  of  Ephrem,  ed.  Dilval,  Journal  asiatique,  9e 
Serie,  t.  XVIII  (1901),  234-319,  strophe  13,  pp.  261  and  295. 

•  Mark  5:9,  15;  Luke  8:30. 

2  Mark  7:6;  Matt.  15:8. 

8  This  is  a  counterpart  of  the  idiom  “ancient  of  days,”  Dan.  7:9,  13,  22,  which 
simply  means  “humanly”  or  “temporally  old.”  This  means,  therefore,  “eternally 
old,”  as  the  divine  being  is  conceived  to  be. 


100  The  paradise  tale.  (11) 

Sun  and  moon  he  sees, 
The  sun  as  father, 

As  mother  the  moon; 

Both  male  and  female 
105  Gods  and  their  offspring. 
With  full  mouth  blasphemes 
He,  and  praises  hosts. 
“Praise  to  ye,  oh  lords 
Of  the  hosts  of  gods,” 

110  He  shouts  unashamed.  (10) 
The  Maccabees  found 
Slain  men  of  the  Jews; 
Finding  in  their  breasts 
Heathenish  idols, 

115  They  offered  for  them 
Prayer  and  sacrifice.5 
And  ye,  oh  ye  saints, 

Pray  for  Bardaisan, 

Who  died  a  heathen, 

120  Legions6  in  his  heart, 

The  Lord  in  his  mouth.7  (11) 


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199 


II 

Aside  from  these  scanty  quotations,  our  knowledge  of  Bardaisan’s 
activity  and  fame  as  a  poet  rests  upon  the  following  evidence:  the  passage 
of  Ephrem’s  hymn,  No.  53,  Adv.  Haer.,  quoted  in  Syriac  and  in  translation 
on  p.  168;  six  lines  of  the  first  hymn,  Adv.  Haer.  (t.  II,  438) :  “  In  Bardaisan’s 
dens  [are  found]  tunes  and  melodies  intended  for  youth  eager  for  sweetness; 
by  his  songs7  harmony  he  rouses  the  desire  of  childhood,”  i.e.,  of  the  child¬ 
ish  mind;  Hymn  54  (t.  II,  555  C/D)  mentions  “the  hymns  of  one  of  them,” 
viz.,  of  the  Bardesanites.  Ephrem,  Opp.  Syr.-Lat.,  t.  Ill,  pp.  li  f.,  the  sec¬ 
tion  of  the  Vatican  Acts  of  Ephrem  dealing  with  Bardaisan’s  poetry,  is 
largely  based  on  these  passages  of  Ephrem.  The  same  section  of  the  Pari¬ 
sian  Acts  (Lamy,  Vol.  II,  col.  66)  contains  a  criticism  of  its  own  chief  source, 
the  Church  History  of  Theodoret  of  Cyrrhus  (see  below),  based  upon  a 
slovenly  quotation  of  the  passage  from  the  53d  hymn,  Adv.  Haer.  The 
Acts  of  Rabbula  (Overbeck,  S.  Ephraemi  Syri  aliorumque  Opera  Seleda 
[Oxford,  1865],  pp.  192,  11.  13-16,  reprinted  in  the  chrestomathy  of  Brockel- 
mann's  grammar)  say:  “The  accursed  Bardaisan  had  been  beforehand  in 
his  guile,  and  by  the  sweetness  of  his  melodies  had  bound  to  himself  all  the 
great  ones  of  the  city  [Edessa],  that  by  them  instead  of  strong  walls  he  might 
be  protected.”  These  are  all  the  extant  witnesses  for  the  native  Syriac 
tradition,  which  is  indirectly  corroborated  by  Eusebius,  H.E.,  IV,  30; 
Jerome,  De  Vir.  III.,  c.  30. 

Sozomenus,  H.E.,  III,  16  (copied  by  Nicephorus  Callixtus),  presents 
what  seems  to  be  in  part,  at  least,  an  independent  tradition,  which  intro¬ 
duces  into  history  that  elusive  phantom-image  of  Bardaisan,  his  son  Har- 
monius.  Bardaisan  is  passed  over  with  very  brief  mention,  whereupon 
Hannonius  proceeds  completely  to  usurp  the  place  of  his  father.  Indeed, 
we  learn  to  our  surprise — and  this  is  Sozomenus7  trump  card — that  Har- 
monius  has  sprung  from  absolute  obscurity  to  be  the  founder,  not  only  of  all 
Bardesanite,  but  also  of  all  Syriac  poetry.  In  spite  of  this  his  tremendous 
importance,  he  is  passed  over  in  utter  silence,  not  only  by  Eusebius,  but  by 
Ephrem,  also.  All  that  is  said  of  him,  when  he  does  appear,  is  either  pre¬ 
posterous,  or  it  is  a  mere  repetition  of  what  is  elsewhere  said  of  his  father. 
Two  other  sons  of  Bardaisan,  mentioned  by  Michael  the  Syrian  {Chronique, 
ed.  Chabot,  Paris,  1900,  pp.  109  f.,  183  f.),  bear  Syro- Arabic  names,  Abgarun 
and  Hasdu.  Harmonius  is,  therefore,  one  of  the  unsolved  mysteries  of 
history. 

In  view  of  all  this  suspicion  does  not  seem  unwarranted  that  this  Har¬ 
monius7  fame  as  a  poet  rests  largely,  if  not  wholly,  upon  his  harmonious 
name,  and,  indeed,  that  this  Bardaisan-son  of  the  Greek  name,  “dis¬ 
covered77  by  Sozomenus,  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  mere  misreading  or 
miswriting  of  >  ,  or  >  into  *  in  a 

sentence  very  like  that  of  the  Vatican  Acts  of  Ephrem,  p.  li,  11.  15  ff.,  followed 


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naturally  by  the  insertion  after  it  of  ,  perhaps  supposed  to  be  omitted 
by  haplography,  and  by  the  “correction”  of  the  preceding  verbal  form,  to 
the  right  gender,  not  improbably  under  the  impression  that  its  final  ^ 
(Estrangelo)  was  a  miswriting  for  initial  ci  of  Harmonius.  Mistranslation 
of  some  epithet  of  Bardaisan’s  formed  by  means  of  bar ,  or  inner-Greek 
corruption,  Hos  dp/xWa?  becoming  vios  'Ap/xovios,  may  or  may  not  have 
helped  the  “discovery.”  That  the  “one  of  them”  of  Ephrem’s  Adi.  Haer. 
No.  54  (vide  supra)  had  any  influence  in  the  matter  is  highly  improbable, 
though  it  shows  us,  what  we  might  have  expected,  that  Ephrem  knew  more 
than  one  Bardesanite  poet. 

It  is  hardly  to  be  supposed  that  Sozomenus  himself  committed  this 
error  (if  error  it  be),  which  his  writings  introduce  to  us.  Sozomenus,  born 
and  reared  near  Gaza,  probably  knew  Syriac  too  well  for  such  misreading 
or  mistranslation.  Schoo  (Quellen  des  Sozomenus,  Berlin,  1911,  p.  142) 
is  almost  certainly  at  fault  when  for  the  chapter  of  the  church  history  quoted 
above  he  assumes  oral  or  written  native  Syriac  sources,  except  for  a  little 
section  dependent  on  Palladius’  Historia  Lausiaca.  Sozomenus  depends, 
as  did  Gregory  of  Nyssa1  before  him,  on  Acts  of  Ephrem,  written  and  pub¬ 
lished,  and  without  much  doubt  translated  into  Greek  no  long  time  after 
Ephrem’s  death,  as  Gregory’s  use  of  them  would  show.  If  a  year  ago  so 
speedy  a  growth  of  legend  might  have  seemed  improbable  to  many  of  us, 
recent  events  have  shown  to  him  who  will  not  close  his  eyes  that,  in  this 
most  modern  of  worlds,  myth,  legend,  and  pure  fable  do  grow  contempo¬ 
raneously  with  or  even  before  the  event  upon  which  they  fasten  themselves. 

To  the  regular  stock  of  these  Acts  belonged  a  section  on  heresies  at 
Edessa  with  mention  of  Bardaisan  as  Ephrem’s  chief  adversary,  and  of  his 
songs.  Gregory  omits  the  name  of  Bardaisan  altogether,  as  of  no  concern 
to  himself,  and  coolly  substitutes  therefor  that  of  his  own  pet  opponent, 
Apollinarius  of  Laodicea,  whose  name  is  in  turn  not  mentioned  by  Ephrem, 
though  his  doctrines  are  said  to  be  referred  to  in  the  hymns  Adversus  Scruta- 
tores,  Opera  Omnia  Syr.-Lat.,  t.  Ill,  1-208.2  And  it  is  in  this  section,  just 
where  the  Vatican  Acts  ( loc .  cit.)  expatiate  upon  the  impetus  given  to  Bar- 
daisan’s  heresy  by  his  poetic  activity,  that  Sozomenus  out  of  a  clear  sky 
introduces  the  son  Harmonius,  who  immediately  displaces  his  illustrious 
father  and  speedily  grows  out  of  all  bounds.  The  place,  therefore,  and  the 
manner,  in  which  the  Harmonius  fiction  comes  to  light,  indicate  that  it  is 
the  Greek  translator  of  such  acts,  or  the  redactor  of  such  a  translation,  who 

1  Encomium,  on  Ephrem ,  in  Migne,  PG,  46,  819-50.  He  already  knew  a  day  dedicated 
annually  to  the  memory  of  Ephrem  (col.  821D).  For  this  festive  occasion  Gregory 
composed  his  encomium,  and  on  such  a  day  some  biographical  account  of  the  hero  would, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  be  read,  wherever  the  festival  was  kept,  as  the  Nyssene’s  own 
homily,  decked  out  in  the  colors  of  the  Metaphrast,  is  read  to  the  present  day.  The 
writer  of  this  essay  is  not  unaware  of  the  fact  that  Gregory  also  made  liberal  use  in  this 
homily  of  the  s.  c.  Testament  of  Ephrem. 

2  On  the  life  and  teachings  of  this  Apollinarius  we  are  much  in  need  of  more  light. 


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201 


served  Sozomenus  as  a  source — a  man,  probably,  to  whom  the  early  history 
of  the  Edessene  church  meant  little — who  is  responsible  for  the  Athenaean 
birth  of  the  mysterious  Harmonius  and  for  the  impetus  toward  his  inordi¬ 
nate  growth.  With  some  e/«£pao-is  of  his  own,  it  is  probably  merely  this 
man’s  error  which  Sozomenus  has  been  the  means  of  perpetuating. 

Upon  Sozomenus  rests  Theodoret  of  Cyrrhus  ( Haer .  Fab.,  I,  22;  H.E., 
IV,  29  j1  Epist .,  145;  cf.  Giildenpenning,  Theodoret  von  Kyrrhos  (Halle, 
1889),  p.  41;  Rauschen,  Jahrbucher  der  christl.  Kirche  unter  Theodosius 
d.  Gr.,  Freiburg,  1897,  p.  7;  Leon  Parmentier,  “Theodoret,  Kirchenge- 
schichte,”  in  Griech.  christl.  Schr.,  Leipzig,  1911,  Einleitg.,  esp.  pp.  lxxxiii-xc). 
But  as  he  goes  beyond  Sozomenus  to  Eusebius  and  to  Greek  translations 
of  original  Syriac  sources(?)  for  his  information  on  Bardaisan,  so  he 
seems  to  have  gone  directly  to  the  source  of  Sozomenus  for  his  state¬ 
ment  of  the  history  of  Harmonius.  True,  he  adds  to  Sozomenus  only 
one  detail:  that  Harmonius  received  his  Greek  education  at  Athens;  and 
that  might  be  only  a  shrewd  guess,  if  not  of  Theodoret  himself  (note  the 
<f)a(TL  Sc  Kal  introducing  this  very  statement),  then  perhaps  of  some  Greek 
reader  of  Sozomenus,  or  of  his  source.  But  he  has  modified  the  extravagance 
of  Sozomenus  so  far,  that  what  remains  of  Harmonius  is  no  longer  anything 
more  than  the  alter  ego  of  Bardaisan’s  own  poetic  ability  and  work,  not  the 
originator  of  Syriac  poetry.  As  against  Sozomenus,  who  wrote  at  Constan¬ 
tinople,  the  influence  of  the  native  tradition  on  Theodoret  at  Cyrrhus,  scarce 
more  than  100  miles  west  of  Edessa,  is  unmistakable;  his  own  words  are 
against  rather  than  for  his  use  of  Syriac  sources  in  the  matter.  It  is  in  this 
emaciated  form  given  him  by  Theodoret  that  Harmonius  henceforth  leads  a 
tenuous,  troubled,  and  wraith-like  existence  in  the  histories  of  the  ancients. 
The  author  of  the  Parisian  Acts  of  Ephrem  {vide  supra)  in  §  31  has  incor¬ 
porated  bodily  the  section  of  Theodoret’s  church  history  above  referred  to, 
stopping  in  the  middle  of  it  to  give  voice  to  his  doubts  about  Harmonius.2 


1  Accusations  of  faulty  chapter-quotation  with  regard  to  this  passage  are  due  to 
faulty  knowledge  on  the  part  of  the  accusers.  The  facts  are — as  a  careful  look  into 
Migne,  or  even  into  Schulze’s  edition  of  Sirmond,  will  make  fairly  clear — that  the  count 
of  the  chapters  at  this  point  varies  widely  in  the  various  editions:  our  numbering,  29, 
follows  with  Parmentier’s  definitive  edition  the  count  of  the  editio  princeps,  Basel,  1535, 
Stephanus  and  Valesius;  Migne  reprinted  Noesselt’s  revision  of  Sirmond,  who  numbered 
this  chapter  26 ;  Christophorson  is  alone  in  counting  this  as  chapter  27 ;  the  manuscript 
numbering,  probably  that  of  Theodoret  himself  (cf.  Parmentier’s  Introduction,  p.  xlii), 
departs  from  all  these,  in  counting  this  section  as  V  =30. 


2  Lamy’s  delimitation  of  the  quotations  at  this  point  is  in  need  of  precision.  The 
direct  quotation  from  Theodoret  begins  with  and  continues  to 

where  it  is  interrupted  by  an  insert  of  the  author’s  which  contains  the  verses  of 
Ephrem  above  referred  to  (p.  199);  the  insert  extends  from  cm  to  U  W. 

„  V  ^  j}  7  ,  where  with  .  the  Theodoret  text  is  again  taken  up  and 

continues  without  further  break  to  its  end,  . 


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Michael  the  Syrian1  borrows  the  name  only  of  Harmonius  from  Theodoret, 
to  add  it  to  the  other  two  {vide  supra),  whose  source  is  unknown.  And 
this  is  the  sum  and  substance  of  our  source  material  for  Harmonius,  son  of 
Bardaisan. 

Manifestly  it  is  a  thin  ^nd  unclear  stream  of  Greek,  non-Syrian,  non- 
Edessene  tradition  alone,  which  has  carried  to  us  the  name  of  this  bloodless 
poet,  who  has  been  a  thorn  in  the  flesh  of  historians  for  lo  these  many  years. 
Neither  Eusebius  with  Jerome  nor  the  native  Syriac  tradition,  represented 
by  Ephrem,  the  Vatican  Acts  of  Ephrem,  the  Acts  of  Rabbula,  Philoxenus 
of  Mabbugh,  the  critical  editor  of  the  Parisian  Acts  of  Ephrem,  the  hesitant 
attitude  of  Theodoret  (c paal  Sc  Kal  in  Haer.  Fab.,  I,  22),  know  aught  of  him. 
Gregory  Abulfarag  Barhebraeus,  though  he  uses  Michael  the  Syrian  as  a 
trusted  source,  omits  the  fated  Harmonius  from  all  mention.  This  does 
make  the  compromising  attitude  of  the  revered  Hort  ( DCB ,  s.v.  “Bardaisan ”) 
seem  over-careful,  and  the  hypothesis  set  forth  above  does  not  appear  in  this 
light  as  too  extreme  a  solution  of  a  knotty  crux  historiographorum. 

With  Harmonius,  indeed,  there  disappears  also  all  foundation  for  any 
claim,  that  Bardaisan  may  have,  to  be  the  founder  or  inventor  of  Syriac 
poetry,  or,  at  least,  hymn-writing.  The  loss  is  not  a  serious  one.  This 
claim  was  urged  first,  I  believe — most  strongly,  at  any  rate — by  August 
Hahn  in  Bardesanes  Gnosticus  Syrorum  Primus  Hymnologus,  p.  29.  Hahn, 
here  as  elsewhere  too  implicitly  followed  by  Duval,  bases  it  upon  a  phrase 
of  the  passage  from  Ephrem,  alluded  to  at  the  beginning  of  this  excursus 

O  P  ••  Sx  «  V 

(p.  199):  ,  which  “literally”  does  mean  “he  introduced 

meters.”  But  this  is  one  of  not  a  few  cases  in  which  a  literal  trans¬ 
lation  is  absolutely  wrong  and  misleading.  The  sense  of  the  Syriac  in  its 
context  (p.  168)  is  perfectly  clear;  it  is  best  convej^ed  to  the  English  reader 
by  some  such  phrase  as  “he  put  them  [i.e.,  his  songs]  into  verse”  or  “into 
metrical  form.”  Thus  Hahn’s  chief  prooftext  vanishes,  as  we  have  seen 
his  “corroborative”  evidence  melt  away  (p.  196,  n.  1).  There  is  no  evidence 
whatsoever  that  Bardaisan  considered  himself  the  inventor  of  any  new  pro¬ 
cedure  in  Syriac  poetry.  Ephrem  neither  says  nor  hints  anything  of  the 
sort,  nor  does  any  Syrian  writer  of  repute.  They  knew  better.  Hahn  was 
tricked  into  this  mistranslation  by  a  statement,  which  he  believed  himself 
to  be  refuting,  viz.,  the  Harmonius  tale  of  Sozomenus.  But  this  tale  of  the 
“invention”  of  Syriac  poetry  which  attaches  to  the  Greek  name  Harmonius 
is  on  the  face  of  it  a  Greek  invention,  whose  purpose  is  perfectly  plain  in  the 
history-book  of  the  Byzantine  courtier  Sozomenus:  Harmonius,  the  man 
of  the  Greek  name,  had  received  a  Greek  education;  and  this  accounts  for 
the  barbarian’s  ability  to  introduce  to  his  countrymen  such  unheard-of  things 
as  meters  and  musical  strains.  From  the  Greek  point  of  view  a  highly 
patriotic  hypothesis!  Rather  less  likely  than  W.  Meyer’s,  however.  And 
little  wonder  that  it  found  no  adherents  among  educated  Syrians. 

1  Loc.  cit.;  cf.  Nau,  Une  Biographic  inedite  de  Bardesane,  Paris,  1897,  p.  1. 


Antonius  Rhetor  on  Versification 


203 


APPENDIX  II 

Among  the  Syriac  manuscripts  purchased  by  the  Semitic  Museum  of 
Harvard  University  from  J.  Rendel  Harris  there  is  further  a  manuscript  of 
the  first  three  books  of  the  Dialogues  of  Severus  of  Mar  Mattai  (bar  Shakko). 

The  manuscript  (Semitic  Museum  No.  4059,  formerly  Cod.  Syr.  124  of 
J.  Rendel  Harris’  collection;  cf.  fob  2a;  see  below)  consists  of  136  leaves, 
22.6X15.8  cm.,  in  gatherings  of  double  leaves,  as  follows:  Nos.  1  and  15 
(the  latter  marked  on  the  lower  margin  of  its  first  page  r-*)  of  twos;  Nos. 
2-13  (marked  in  the  lower  margins  of  first — except  i  and  ^ — and  last  pages 
from  I  to  of  fives;  No.  14  (w._*)  of  four.  Rulings  of  19  lines  block 
out  a  writing-surface  of  16 . 7  X 10  cm.  The  leaves  are  numbered  on  the  recto 
in  the  upper  left-hand  corner  in  penciled,  occidental  numerals,  1-136  (prob¬ 
ably  by  J.  Rendel  Harris);  in  the  lower  left-hd!nd  corner,  foil.  6-134,  in 
Syriac  letters  ,  sometimes  supplemented  by  Arabic  numerals  (written 

in  ink).  Catchwords  insure  the  proper  succession  of  leaves.  Headings 
throughout  are  in  red;  an  arch  of  oriental  scrollwork,  blue,  white,  and  black 
on  a  red  background,  not  wholly  without  taste,  incloses  the  opening  words 
on  fol.  5 a. 

The  heavy  paper,  of  a  kind  much  in  vogue  in  the  modern  Levant,  bears 
the  watermark  of  the  Fratelli  Palazzuoli  in  Latin  and  Arabic  characters. 
The  English  binder  has  added  guards  and  fly-leaves  of  his  own,  leaving  his 
stamp  on  the  guard  under  the  left-hand  cover:  “ Bound  by  Wilson  &  Son, 
Cambridge.”  The  binding  is  of  dark-gray  cloth  with  black  sheepskin  back 
and  corners.  The  title,  stamped  in  gold  on  the  back,  between  the  second 
and  third  of  eight  pairs  of  lines,  reads:  Jacob  Bar  Shakko-Dialogues. 
Within  the  left-hand  cover  is  pasted  J.  Rendel  Harris’  bookmark. 

Fol.  la  contains  a  line  and1  a  quarter  of  Syriac  script  in  the  hand  of 

•  •  •  • 

the  main  scribe:  |  .  .  |Lo  iizJ  . 

•  •  •  •• 

#  • 

. ?|j  ,  an  unfinished  saw,  warning  against  careless  speech — 

an  inscription  not  unmeet  for  a  book  on  grammar,  rhetoric,  and  versification. 
The  legend,  “Jacob  bar  Shakko-Dialogues,”  is  written  under  the  mark 
“Cod.  Syr.  124”  on  fol.  2a,  both  in  J.  Rendel  Harris’  hand.  Farther  down  on 
the  same  page  another  hand  (Professor  D.  G.  Lyon’s)  has  written  “Semitic 
Museum  No.  4059.” 

Foil.  26-45  and  135a  contain  models  of  letter-writing,  chiefly  ecclesiasti¬ 
cal,  in  a  cramped,  uncertain  hand  (supplementing  foil.  816-92  ?).  The  body 
of  the  book  is  in  a  flowing,  professional,  modern  Jacobite  hand,  and  is  cor¬ 
rectly  defined  by  the  index,  fol.  5a,  as  follows:  The  first  Mlmra,  on  grammar, 
extends  from  fol.  56  to  50  (eio)  6,  being  divided  into  two  sections  at  fol.  34 
f\)  a;  Mlmra  2,  on  rhetoric,  covers  foil.  51  (>-^)  a  to  102  (^*^,  4a)  a;  and 
Mlmra  3,  on  poetics,  foil.  1026-134  (X^o)  a.  Under  the  index,  names  and 
dates  of  Severus  together  with  a  bibliographical  note  on  his  writings  are 
given  from  the  Chronicon  Ecclesiasticum  of  Barhebraeus. 


204 


The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages 


Colophons  are  found  as  follows:  fol.  33  (^a)  b:  “The  book  from  which 
we  copied  was  written  in  the  year  1938  of  the  Greeks  (  =  1626  a.d.),  and  its 
writer’s  name  was  Barsauma”;  fol.  50  (oio)  b:  “Finished  by  the  mean  and 
sinful  deacon,  the  Jerusalemite  Matthaeus,  son  of  Paul,  deceased,  in  the  city 
of  Mosul  on  the  third  of  Kanun  I,  1895  Christian;  in  the  days,  when  [an 
erasure  has  here  blotted  out  a  word,  probably  ‘Moslems’]  rose  against  the 
Christians  and  killed  them  without  mercy  in  the  city  of  Amid  [i.e.,  Diarbekr] 
and  the  surrounding  towns  and  villages”;  fol.  102  a  mentions  merely 
the  date  1895;  the  longest  and  most  important  colophon  closes  the  main 
body"  of  the  book  on  fol.  134  (^>-0)  b: 

Finished  and  ended  is  this  precious  book  called  The  Book  of  the  Dialogues 
of  our  Father,  celebrated  among  celibates  and  a  saint  among  bishops,  Mar 
Severus,  i.e.,  Jacob  bar  Talia,  the  Syrian;  in  which  are  contained  various 
sciences;  in  the  year  2207  of  the  Greeks  and  1895  Christian,  in  the  middle  of  the 
month  Kanun  I,  in  the  days  of  our  Fathers  elect,  filled  with  wisdom  and  truth, 
Maran  Mar  Ignatius,  Patr<iarch>,  servant  of  Christ;  and  Mar  Dionysius, 
Metre opolitan>,  Behnam  of  Mosul;  and  Mar  Cyrillus,  Metre opolitan>, 
Elias  in  the  monastery  of  Mar  Mattai;  with  the  rest  of  the  fathers.  May  the 
Lord  prolong  their  lives  and  by  their  prayers  guard  their  flocks!  Amen.  And 
it  was  written  by  the  mean  and  sinful  deacon,  the  Jerusalemite  Matthaeus,  son 
of  Paul,  deceased,  in  the  city  of  Mosul,  surnamed  Asshur  and  Niniveh,  in  the 
quarter  [hostelry  ?]  of  the  church  of  Mary,  Mother  of  God,  in  the  quarter  of  the 
carpenters;  and  we  copied  it  from  an  ancient  book,  which  Barsauma  wrote  in 
the  year  1938  Gr<eek>;  and  this  book  was  written  in  the  days,  when  [another 
erasure;  read  “the  Moslems”]  rose  up  against  the  Christians  and  massacred 
them  in  the  city  of  Amid  and  the  villages  round  about,  and  in  Melitene,  and  in 
Se'erd  and  Batlis;  and  in  all  the  countryside  and  cities  and  villages,  where  there 
were  Syrians  and  Armenians,  they  killed  them  without  mercy;  and  in  Severak. 
If  one  became  [a  Moslem:  partly  legible  Through  an  erasure]  he  was  safe,  but 
a  Christian  was  slain.  And  their  wives  and  children  were  led  away  captive; 
and  they  killed  them  [and  despoiled  them  in  their  houses:  this  by  the  cramped 
hand  in  the  lower  margin].  This  is  that  which  happened:  [corrector  as  before: 
In  this]  [the  flowing  hand  now  continues  in  the  right-hand  margin :]  an  admonition 
for  the  generations  [this  last  word  stands  in  place  of  another  erasure]  who  shall 
come  after.1 

1  A  note  of  no  small  interest  in  the  present.  The  excited,  broken  sentences  at  the 
end  are  eloquent.  Of  the  places  mentioned  Amid-Diarbekr  is  well  enough  known. 
Melitene  is  probably  better  known  by  that  name  than  by  its  modern  equivalent  Mala- 
tiyeh.  For  Se'erd,  written  also  Se'ert,  Se'ort,  Sse'ort,  Sa'irt,  Si'ird,  and  Is'Irt,  now 
So  ord,  JAS,  X  serie,  15  (1910),  p.  107,  cf.  Ritter,  Erdkunde,  IX,  99,  534;  Shiel,  Jour. 
Roy.  Geogr.  Soc.,  VIII  (1838),  81  f.;  Fr.  B.  Charmoy,  Cheref  oud-din  (Petersburg,  1868-75), 
1,463;  Socin,  “Tur  Abdin,”  ZDMG,  XXXV  (1881),  240;  Prym  und  Socin,  Dialekt  des 
Tur  Adbin,  p.  418;  G.  Hoffmann,  Ausz.  aus  syr.  Akten  ( Abh .  f.  d.  Kunde  des  Morg.,  VII, 
3),  p.  5,  259,  and  n.  1359.  Batlis,  Badlis,  more  usually  Bitlis,  Ritter,  Erdkunde,  IX,  93, 
1004;  Southgate,  Narrative  of  Tour  through  Armenia  (1840),  I,  218;  Layard,  Discoveries 
in  ....  Niniveh  (1853),  p.  37;  Prym  und  Socin,  op.  cit.,  pp.  v  and  416;  Severak  or 
Sewerak,  also  written  Suverak,  Baedeker,  Palestine  and  Syria,  4th  ed.  (1906),  p.  389, 
Map  of  Syria,  Mesopotamia,  and  Babylonia,  west  of  Diarbekr,  a  little  east  of  the 
Euphrates.  See  also  LeStrange,  Lands  of  the  Eastern  Caliphate,  pp.  108,  113  f.,  120. 


Antonius  Rhetor  on  Versification  205 

Of  this  work  of  Severus  bar  Shakko  portions  not  contained  in  this  manu¬ 
script  have  been  published  in  some  form  by  J.  Ruska,  Das  Quadrivium  aus 
S.  b.  S.  Buck  der  Dialoge,  Leipzig,  1896  (inaccessible  to  the  writer);  cf.  ZA, 
XII;  of  the  portions  contained  in  the  Harvard  manuscript,  Merx  published 
an  analysis  of  the  grammatical  sections  in  his  Historia  artis  grammaticae 
apud  Syros  (Leipzig,  1889)  (Abh.f.  d.  Kunde  des  Morg.,  IX,  2);  and  eleven 
chapters  of  the  third  Mlmra  with  a  few  pages  of  the  first  were  published  in 
full,  together  with  a  French  translation,  by  M.  l’abbe  Martin  in  De  la 
Metrique  chez  les  Syriens  (Leipzig,  1879)  (Abh.f.  d.  Kunde  des  Morg.,  VII,  2), 
cf.  Jour.  As.  (1872,  Avril-Mai).  Up  to  the  present  time  this  publication  of 
Martin’s  represented  the  oldest,  most  extensive,  and  pretentious  work  on 
Syriac  versification  by  a  native  author  yet  published.  It  is  of  especial 
importance  for  the  present  publication,  though  the  text  published  by  Martin 
is  bound  thereby  to  lose  in  intrinsic  value,  since,  as  Duval  (Or.  Stud.  Th. 
Noldeke  gew.,  loc.  cit.)  has  pointed  out,  Severus  has  in  this  portion  of 
his  work  made  extensive  use,  often  verbatim,  of  the  work  of  Anthony  of 
Tagrit,  published  in  the  foregoing  pages  (a  list  of  parallel  passages  in  the 
Introduction,  p.  174).  This  is  a  discovery  doubly  welcome  to  us,  since  this 
particular  part  of  Anthony’s  work  seems,  so  far  as  yet  known,  to  be  very 
poorly  preserved.  As  Martin’s  work  is  subject  to  improvement,1  this  col¬ 
lation  with  notes  of  the  Harvard  manuscript  with  Martin’s  text  will  be 
found  of  some  use.  It  is  hoped  that  the  remaining  ten  chapters  of  this  treat¬ 
ise  may  be  made  public  at  a  date  not  too  far  in  the  future. 

COLLATION 

The  symbol  H  is  used  for  the  Harvard  manuscript.  The  numbers  fixing 
the  location  of  variants  refer  to  the  lines  of  pages  and  notes  (n.)  in  Martin’s 
edition. 

H  fol.  1026;  Martin  p.  8 


H  add.  w£oZ  at  the  beginning  of  the  title  (8:1). 

•*  V 

H  om.  l*fc^O|-o  in  the  title,  with  0;  it  vocalizes  (8:1). 

•  •• 

8:3,  :  H  ;  8:4,  :  H  r.  *  ; 

8:6,  cf.  n.  3.  H  =  0;  8:8,  )j -axo:  H  Vj-aio;  8:11,  :  H 

•• 

8:12,  [.]]&. * riAfl-ioVs  :  H  =  0,ci.n.8. 

9,  n.  1,  H  —  O;  9:1,  :  H  9,  n.  5,  H  —  O;  9:3/4, 

no  indication  of  any  lacuna  after  in  H,  which  has  full  stop:  ❖ .  9 : 5, 

flic?  :  H  l^iJzLs^co  U^c?;  H  fol.  103a  (^),  init. 


i  Cf.  Noldeke,  ZDMG,  XXXIV  (1880),  569-78. 


206 


The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages 


9:8,  j  Vi  a  :  H  jAnon:| ;  post  i^.i  H  add.  ;  9:9,  |-aA-i2^Z:  H  -^in 

red);  i  :  H  ;  9,  n.  10,  H  =  L ;  9:11,.  > :  H  :  ; 

•  •  • 

9:12+71.  11,  H  |Zc+^oj>2? ;  om.  H  =  0;  9,  n.  12,  H  . 

10,  7i.  1,  H  =  L ;  10,  n.  2,  H  —  O;  10:3,  H  ^©| ,  slightly  indistinct  in 

the  text,  is  written  by  another  hand,  distinctly,  in  the  margin;  10:4,. 

H  ^  nqift^o ;  10,  n.  3,  H  =  0;  10:8,  I©--*.--  :  H  jin  ;  n.  5 

•  • 

H  =  0;  H  fol.  1036  init.  ^0;  10:9,  ^r^|c  :  H  ,  a  aa]o  ;  10,77.6, 

H  =  0;  10: 11,  j?ciA^ :  H  ;  10,  n.  8,  H  —  O;  10,  77.  9,  H  om.  ; 

10:13,  A-4.A-Ars.A<n  :  H  iZo-Asij^cn ;  10:12-14,  not  fairly  represented  by 

•  •  • 

Martin’s  translation;  “but  then  the  meter  runs  evenly  (or  ‘as  an  equalizing 
agent’)  through  every  kind  of  plot  and  figure  of  speech.” 

11, 77. 1,  H=0;  ll,n.2,H  =  0;  11 :4,  :  H  oi^» ;  H  fol.  104a  (  =  j), 

•  •• 

incip.  jjjcu*.  (in  red);  77.  b.  sine  1  ac  Seyame;  11:9,  :  H  i^a-^s  ; 

: 

item  11:10;  IZcJ-aJlIq^:  H  IZclI-aa^ilc^©  (the  correct  reading:  “meter  is  con- 

•  •  • 

stituted  of  lines  that  correspond  to  each  other  in  beats  of  syllables”); 

11:10/11,  H  add.  post  ^cioy.,*^ ;  11:12/13,  H  om.  to  by 

••  ^ 

homoioteleuton;  11:13,  jloai? :  H  jlocn? ;  idem  11:14;  11,  n.7,H  =  0;  11, 

n.8,H  =  0;  11:15,  ^e:  H 

12:5,  ^oio£ua|:  H  o^a]  ;  12:6,  H  trsp .  jZai^A.i.i^o  j^?;  12:9,  post  |-acl^ 

•  •  •  • 

•  • 

H  add.:  :  i-Ad-A.  Ij-a^a  .  1  f+L*  ©]  ©01 ,  plainly  an  omission  by  homoio- 

•  •  •  • 

teleuton  in  the  text  printed  by  Martin;  this  makes  a  real  translation  a 

•  • 

simple  matter;  12:10,  :  H  :  UsaaJo  ;  12,  77.  3,  H  =  0;  here  HO  are 

•  A  • 

•  • 

wrong  by  homoioteleuton;  12:12,  unrsjjaic :  H  uncjlaa;;  12,  n.  4,  H  =  0; 

12,  77.  6,  H  =  0. 

13:1,  ^a-oo|:  H  asjsoj  ;  13,  n.  2,  H  —  O;  13:2,  H  om.  +2];  H  ^ ; 

13:4,  oZ;-a|  :  H  w?i©A-*| ;  loin  :  H  ©<n  ;  13,  n.  3,  H  —  O;  13:5,  :  H  ,-a^o  ; 

•  •  *  •  • 

13,  77.5,  H  =  0;  13,  n.  6,  H  —  O;  13:5,  Martin,  inexact:  “de  meme  que, 

avec  de  la  paille  et  de  la  boue,  on  fabrique  de  la  brique”;  better  “for,  as  by 


Antonius  Rhetor  on  Versification 


207 


means  of  a  brickmold  and  clay,  brick  is  formed.”  H  fol.  105a  =  l~c  ,  M  indy. 

(in  red) ;  13 : 9,  n.  7  H  (in  red)  ??  ;  13 : 10,  :  H  ,-^iZci? ; 

•  •  • 

13,  n.  9,  H  =  0;  13,  n.  9,  H  =  0  (  =  “by  the  scanner”  rather  than  “by  the 

versifier”?);  13 : 13,  :  H  ;  13: 14, :  H  ;  13:18, 

•  •  •  • 

rZ*=  (1):  H  ,-Zo;  post  ,^-»5Z  H  add.  ,^-oZ  (both  without  Seydme );  13,  n.  12, 

I  do  not  understand  this  note;  there  seems  to  be  no  variant. 

••  — 

14:1,  ,-Zc  (2) :  H  oZ  (a  senseless  scribal  error) ;  14:3,  j.A\n»o  :  H  oio  ; 

14,  n.  2,  H  =  0. 

fol.  1056,  indp.  14:5,  l^o^so? :  H  ;  14:6,  ante 

•  ,* 

H  add.  ;  14:7,  1  *  *  «Vi.»  Ific-A,:  H  j-A.v..»?  Wla-4,  (in  red); 

•  • 

14:8,  >*oic2l*|  :  14,  n.  3,  H  bkZc* ;  14,  n.  4,  oi^£-aZso  wicj^u^Jaic? ; 

14,  n.  5,  H  iJj-Laxc;  i.e.,  “the  first  genus  is  that  which  is  formed  by  the 

first  placing  of  Munitas  and  is  named  from  them  Su'rana  zexura  (the  small 

category)  ”;  cf.  Antonius  Rhetor,  Canon  II  fin.,  H  fol.  93a  11.  23  f.;  14,  n.  6, 

•  • 

H  =  0,  a  mere  scribal  error;  14:14,  ^-3 H  .-i  * (scribal  error); 

•  • 

14: 15,  wnoA-d* :  Ii  ;  14: 17,  ^<n  :  H  ^sio  ;  14,  n.  8 ,  H  =  0,  sed  sine 

Seyame;  14,  n.  9,  H  =  0;  the  remark  is  misplaced;  it  should  follow  ^Z-jz ; 

14:20,  under  jia^i  H  has  in  the  margin:  w^.  H  fol.  106a, 

indp.  ^i-^xuzz^z  :  rj» ;  14:21,  :  II  j.«*  a  Vi  *> . 

•  •  • 

•  •  • 

15,  n.  1,  H  =  0 ;  15:1,  csio  :  H  o<n  ;  ,-clZ  :  H  ,-zZs. o ;  15:3,  ; 

•  •  *  •  ^  • 

•  • 

H  .  ;  15,  n.  4,  H  —  O,  sed  scribit  1*-*^ ;  is,  n.  5,  H  =  0;  15:6, 

^  •  •  •  • 

H  om.  15,  n.  6,  I  do  not  understand  this;  no  variant  is  apparent; 

15,  n.  7,  H  =  0;  15 : 10,  ^|.j>.iaszz.^.z  :  H  ^AjaLft^z ;  15,  n.  8,  H  =  L  (a  mere 
scribal  error,  repetition,  in  O);  15,  n.  10,  H  =  0;  H  fol.  1066  indp. 

15:16,  :  H  <Zo;  15:17,  U-^l :  H  ;  15: 18,  post  H  add.  ; 

V  V  - 

15:20,  post  H  add.  ^<n  ;  :  H  ;  15:21,  >o,_oo : 

H  jiZZiCj^c  . 


208 


The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages 


22,  n.  1,  77  =  0;  22,  n.  2,  77  =  0;  was  the  name  of  the  scribe  of  that 

text  to  which  0  and  77,  and  77 ’s  immediate  predecessor  at  Mosul  may  be 
traced  back,  Peter  ( ?) ;  22,  n.  3,  77  om.  . 

23,  n.  1,  77  =  L;  23,  n.  2,  l.  2,  :  77  |Zc^ig|  >  ; 

|i^2zz  ,-^Z:  77  a2zz  „_^z  ,—*’Z;  23,  n.  2,  l.  3,  77  om.  locnJ ;  Iz-s'^lo  (2): 
77  L^| ;  jzanicl  ^z* :  77  kiaicl ;  23,  n.  2 ,  d,  77  =  0;  77  fol.  107a,  , 

indy.  psViArso ;  23,  n.  2e,  77  =  0;  23,  n.  2,  l.  6,  77  jJZL^cn? ;  77  om. 

;  |ooi :  77  0(71 ;  23,  n.  2,  l.  7,  jZal  mIILc?  :  77  jzo-i4^iZo> ;  23,  n.  3,  77  =  0. 

*  •  • 

24,  n.  1,  H  =  0;  24,  n.  2,  H=0;  24:6,  H  U|Z=? ;  24:9, 

iic| :  H  |J-»l ;  24,  n.  5,  H  =  0;  24,  re.  7,  iA.i  H  -  m.  ;  24,  n.  7 
(p.  25),  iZZ  (1):  i/U^Zo;  ,_=o:  H^=. 


25,  re..  1,  H  =  0;  25,  re.  2,  H  =  0;  25,  re.  3,  11  =  0;  25:9,  :  H 

ZoL^c;  25,  n.  4,  77  =  0;  77  fol.  1076,  indy,  yost  >a*»= uo;  25:12,  : 

77  ;  25,  ?z.  5,  77  =  0. 

•  • 

26,  n.  2,  77  ;  26:3,  Lei :  77  Lcjo;  26,  n.  4,  77  =  0;  26:5,  77  om. 

•  • 

wZ? ,  add.  yost  jJ ;  26:9,  :  77  ;  “that  thy  son,  who  is  of  thee, 

will  stab”  or  “ yierce  thee,”  not  “te  perdra”;  26: 11,  ]i|o  :  77  PI ;  26,  n.  5, 
77  ^  . 

27:1,  “If  thou  ask  as  much  as  a  little  drop  of  water,  he  is  harsher  than 
poison”  (but  cf.  also  Noldeke),  not  “Faire  boire  de  beau  melee  a  de  l’urine  e’est 
pis  que  donner  du  poison”;  27,  n.  1,  77  =  0;  27:2,  >aZ :  77  ;  27,  n.  3a, 

77  =  0;  77  fol.  108a,  ,-d,  indy.  ;  27,  n.  36,  77  =  0;  27 ,  n.  3,  7  5,  <jic  : 

77  i-AZc^c  ;  27,  n.  3,  Z.  6,  IzL^c :  77  iZcb*-^ie ;  27,  n.  3c,  77  =  0;  27,  n.  4, 

•  • 

77  =  0  (correct:  4X3  syllables) ;  27:5,  posZ  77 add.  :  77  j-tir ; 

27 ,w.5,  77  L^z]o  ;  27:7,  :  77  A  **3 vr  ;  ijZoa^o:  77  1^cc.^do;  : 

77  jZ>o4  (all  three  correct). 

•  • 

28,  n.  1,  77  =  0,  exc.  yro  Zz»-a ;  28:5,  j-cZAJ  :  77  ;  jjaZ  :  77  jjiz ; 

•  •  •  • 

n.2H  —  L  (all  three  correct);  28,  n.  3,  77  =  0;  28:6,  >oZ:  77  (probably 


Antonius  Rhetor  on  Versification 


209 


also  the  reading  intended  by  Martin);  28:7,  :  H  *  nxo.\ ;  post 

•  • 

H  add.  ;  28,  n.  5,  H  Ao  (correct);  28,  n.  6,  H  =  0;  28:10,  qi \ a\  : 

•  • 

H  qii  iV.  (Martin’s  translation  needs  correction;  “The  tongue  of  the  man 
who  is  wise  speaks  all  manner  of  fair  things  of  those  good  hoards,  which  are 
hidden  in  his  heart  ”) ;  28 : 13,  l  :  H  ;  H  fol.  1086,  incip.  o| 

|JclLd  ;  28,  n.  7,  H  jjca^oJo  ppDoso  (correct) ;  28:16,  :  H  Ul-^f30  • 

29:2,  H  n.  1,  H  ;  29:4,  ©izA :  H  ^<nai«zA;  29:6, 

post  w^©z©  H  add.  ;  29:7,  H  om.  oiA ;  ©J-^oic :  H  ^oia J-^axc ;  “imitates” 

•  • 

or  “emulates  him,”  not  “Finite”;  29: 10,  :  H  ;  29:12,  V©  : 

H  ;  I’ll’*) :  H  tyl ;  29,  n.  3,  H  ;  29 : 14,  :  H  (intended 

•  • 

by  Martin;  cf.  translation). 

30:2,  pilcAc :  H  bbAj;  H  fol.  109a,  cue,  incip.  1  ^  (  =  0,  30, 

n.  1);  30  ‘A-,  2Z»j.*mSA,Z  :  H  ;  30:7,  :  H  ^|A«ts  ; 

•  • 

30,  n.  3,  H  =  0;  30,  n.  4,  H  —  0;  30: 11,  :  H  ;  liiao :  H  U^© ; 

•• 

:  H  . 

31:1,  :  H  31,  n.  la,  H  =  0;  31,  n.  16,  H  =  0; 

31:8,  jziao-^l ;  H  Ua©a-gzd  ;  H  fob  1096,  incip.  ;  31 : 11, 

•  ••  • 

••  ••  :  • 

:  H  Iic^o  — ^oi  Asriaaci ;  p<nZo  ^-i-oz? :  H  pen  Zo}-*»oZ?  (a  rank  scribal 

•  '  *i  •  •  s 

error;  there  is  no  such  word);  31:12,  :  H  j-c-cis ;  e  H  =  0;  31,  n.  1 

(p.  32,  l.  3),  :  H  (probably  a  mere  misprint  in  Martin) ; 

•  • 

post’  H  add.  ^-d  ;  31,  n.  1  (p.  32,  l.  4),  :  H  w^pzzz?  ;  bbc  : 

H  Ij-s;  31,  n.  1  (p.  32,  l.  5),  uc :  H  ).n  p  sc  ;  ©cn :  H  ocn  ;  31,  n.  1 
•"  •  •  • 

(pp.  32/),  H  =  0;  31,  n.  1  (p.  32,  l.  5),  w^pzzj  :  ~*uPZ£J?;  31,  n.  1 

•  •  •• 

(p.  32 g),  H  _isc  1L-*  o 
/  ^  •  • 

32,  n.  1,  H  ^*izA©;  32,  n.  2,  Vz?:  H  Vz;  32:8,  lb:  H  ^y,  H 

•  •  • 

fob  110,  c-c,  incip.  U~»r-  . 

33,  n.  1,  H  =  0;  33:2,  H  33:3,  ^s|:  H  ^sj;  33,  n.  2, 

H  ;  33,  n.  3,  H  =  0,  H  omits  also  one  Ab3  (as  probably  does  0,  the 


210 


The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages 


fault  lying  either  with  Martin’s  notation  or  with  the  printer);  33:7,  : 

H  oi^  ;  33:9,  ante  ^  H  add.  <*-£>?;  33,  n.  5,  H  =  0;  33,  n.  7,  H 

^+-t.r>Lu±o  ;  33,  n.  8,  H  —  0;  33 : 14,  :  H  ;  j^a^s  : 

H  j-lcu^ws  (as  Martin  intended);  33,  n.  9,  H  =  0;  33,  n.  10,  H  =  0 ;  H  fol. 
•  • 

110  6  incip.  |j-d  Vs;  33:18 — 34:1,  should  be  translated:  “And 
then  we  fashion  and  weave  upon  it  any  thought-content  whatsoever. 
First,  then,  we  test  it  and  bring  it  to  ‘the  tune’  as  to  a  crucible;  and  if  the 

tune  fit,  then  you  may  well  chant  (and  employ)  and  write  and  read  (it); 
but  if  not,  then  we  must,”  etc.;  33:20,  z,  Vi  V>zzj? :  H  z,LaIzz|? . 


34:1,  I  :  H  j^ai. ;  n.  1  H  =  0;  n.  2  H  =  0;  34:2,  :  H 

>ooov3 :  H  >ca^J  (intended  by  Martin?);  34:4,  H  om. 

••  •  •  • 
ocnj]o  .  ;  34:5,  ]ZzZ>Oj*LZo  :  H  jZZya^*ZZiC  ;  ft.  5  H  iSJQn.hon.l.^ 

34:6,  '-^Zzs? :  H  llo^Zzs?;  34,  n.  6,  H  ]z] ;  34:8,  jiaZas: :  H 

| LI  a.-. :  H  ;  34,  n.  8,  H  >C95  :  U-**^s.LaIz  ;  34, 

n.  9,  H  =  0;  34:9,  H  om.  cZs?;  34,  n.  10,  H  —  O ;  34:11,  o^.s :  H  ; 

34,  n.  11,  H  =  0,  sed  0  o :  H  ?Lsjo;  0  >0^:  H  H  fol.  111a,  yo , 

•  • 

incip.  1*1  a  vz  hlcuk.  (in  red) ;  34 : 14,  )  Vunmj? :  H  j.Vina:|? ;  34 : 15,  ^cn2zs 


>9 : 


H  om.  ?;  34,  n.  12,  H  =  0;  34,  n.  13,  H  :r-i-^2z;  34:17,  : 

H  (correct) ;  34 : 18,  jznlsjr] :  H  Ivna?)  (so  consistently,  unless 

otherwise  noted). 


35:1,  H  ;  35,  n.  2,  H  =  0;  35,  n.  3,  H  =  0;  35,  n.  4, 

•  •  • 

H  =  0  (so  consistently  henceforth,  unless  otherwise  noted);  35:6,  ,-*ZZ*1o : 
H  ^Zz^o ;  ]L^jo  :  H  jL^o ;  35 : 7,  |jzs|zz4. :  H  ;  H  fol.  1116,  incip. 

om  <oci2z?  (35:10);  35,  n.  10,  H  ]Zz»n,A,Vr  ©Zz*1 ;  35:11,  :  H 

•  • 

L-m-sZZs  ;  35:12,  :  H  iis-*,  bis ;  35:11-14  should  be  read:  “Eskimo 

is  meter  which  is  diversely  beaten  (or  measured),  though  it  be  the  same  in 
stature;  just  as  a  straight  leg  and  a  crooked  leg,  which  are  both  of  one 
cubit, — not  in  stature,  but  in  form  ( eskima )  do  the  lines  differ,”  or  better 


Antonius  Rhetor  on  Versification 


211 


still  with  Antonius  Rhetor  100,  23:  “not  in  stature  (or  height),  but  in  the 
form  of  the  lines  do  they  differ.”  35,  n.  13,  H—L;  but  writes  the  word  in 
red;  35:16,  H  om.  35:17,  :  H  (incorrect);  Martin’s 

translation  “le  vers”  is  ambiguous,  to  say  the  least;  the  meaning  is  “The 
reading  (or  recitation)  of  four-syllable  meter  may  be  imposed  if  it  disturb 
not  the  sense,  upon  the  eight-syllable  meter”;  the  context  makes  this  clear 
beyond  a  doubt. 

36:3,  \r»ZZ:  H  ^ZZ;  36:4,  ^oZo;  H  ^oZ;  36:5, 

.*  •  •• 

H  om.  36:6,  :  H  Ua^o;  cnlao:  H  ctlXa?  ;  H  fol.  112a,  , 

incip.  (36:7);  36 : 8,  ^ci©  :  H  wno ;  36 : 9,  lajk. :  H  ;  36:10, 

^  •  • 

o  :  H  wtio  ;  36:11,  H  om.  „±m.\Ljk*z ;  36,  n.  7, 

H  A  *1  ;  36:14,  wAaa  :  H  jAa^ Aaa  ;  36:15,  ZicZ±\  :  H  lA-odA]  ; 

z 

36:16,  H  without  abbrev.;  36,  n.  9,  H  r^iz  (corrected  by  first  hand); 

36:17,  H  without  abbrev.;  :  H  Zo?oA] ;  36:19,  r.* :  H  }zrJ\ : 

•  •  • 

H  ;  36:20,  A^jA©,^ :  H  >©|~c  . 

H  fol.  1126,  incip.  q  c?  f  om.  (37:  If.);  ^7,  n.l,  H  ❖ 
>©-*jcZA J;  37:3,  jJ^Loxc:  H  jJjAaiff;  37:4,  37:7, 

coi? :  H  05i ;  37,  n.  6,  H  =  L;  37:11,  ovo :  H  eve ;  37,  n.  8,  H  ; 

37:15,  H  om.  —i ;  37:16,  H  without  abbrev.;  H  fol.  113a,  ,  incip. 

Ilius  (37:18). 

-  —  •  : 

38:1,  H  .  e-jA©iA©  .  c'-jU  ;  38:2,  vuai-iA©?  .  ^ji^a©  ;  H 

(incorrect);  38:7,  oiAVun*] :  H  giAAa-^j;  38,  n.  6,  H  UKL«Jo|^a3|^  ;  38:11, 

•  •  .*  • 

•  • 

s  :  H  oflAioiajl-c  (correct);  38: 12,  H  without  abbrev.;  iauaaAoo : 

•  •  • 

H  j (correct);  H  fol.  1136,  incip.  j-a^AA;  38:14,  gagi^aX  :  H 
•  •  •  • 

s-£0al,A,r.\ ;  38: 18,  H  A^oen  .  A^oci  .  A^oai  .  join  .  jooi  .  jooi ;  38:20,  ante  .cJj 

I  /  —  —  —  •  •  •  ' 

H  om.  . 


39 : 2,  ,-Ac  :  H  ,-Ac  ;  )ZcZ], :  H  \ZoZ]i ;  39:5,  jAA^Ao  :  H  ]  AA^Aoa ;  39:7, 


212 


The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages 


:  H  ;  H  fol.  114a,  ,  incip.  (39:9);  39:10,  H 

•  •  •  •  • 

❖  AicjAoZ]  .  .  A-OjAcZj  ;  39:17,  H  om.  jJiZa^c  . 

•  • 

40:4,  post  H  add.  ;  40,  n.  5,  H  551Z;  40:5,  »  mV  :  H 

•  •• 
(correct);  H  fol.  114 b,  incip.  (40:7);  40:13,  aV)  : 

•  •  •  •  • 

H  (correct) ;  40: 17, 18,  . )  .© ^  .  bocuaio  :  H  llO-ie  .  I 

•  •  •  ^  ^  ••  •  • 

•  •  • 

❖  )  ~~  . 


41:1,  ante  r s  H  add.  ^oci?  (Martin’s  notation  for  0  is  unclear, 

,*  • 

but  probably  means  the  same);  41:3,  llooj^ :  H  ;  ©]  :  H 

jjo©a4u:|  ;  41:4,  — :  H  — a!.c&^o  ;  H  fol.  115a  l— *— s  ,  ttt, 

•  •  '  •  • 

incip.  ;  41:5,  H  without  abbrev.;  41:7,  :  H  ; 

41:8,  |A  ;  H  (misprint  in  Martin?);  41:14,  H  without 

abbrev.;  not  “en  plagant  au  premier  vers  de  chaque  strophe  une  lettre,” 

but  “at  the  beginning  of  every  line  in  the  same  strophe ”;  41,  n.  7,  H  ; 

41:17,  :  H  s*<n ;  n.  8  H  ooi  :  41:19,  L^y.  H  ,-Aa?AJ?  (the 

mistake  of  an  ignorant  scribe);  41:20,  H  without  abbrev.;  ^o^]©: 
•  • 

H  *-Og-s|o . 


H  fol.  1156,  incip.  _io  (42:2);  42:4,  :  H  ]A-*Ac,-o ;  42, 

^  '  •  •  • 

•  _ 

n.  3,  H  (as  Martin  intended  for  Of);  42:6,  :  H  w-A-s? : 

H  ;  42,  n.  4,  H  ;  42:7,  .  Ijiol^o  :  H  .  jAajAA©  ;  42:8,  L»o<n  : 

^  •  •••••• 

•  _ 

H  si ;  42:9,  :  H  Vm©a^au|5 . 


48 : 2-5,  pro  *  H.  aid  : ,  exc.  ❖  il^s ;  the  slightly  different  pointings 

throughout  this  verse  did  not  seem  worth  noting  in  detail;  H  fol.  116a, 

..rxA.£> ,  incip.  (48,  n.  3,  p.  49,  l.  2);  48,  n.  3,  p.  49,  l.  3,  5iZaAo|AAao : 

•  • 

H  |ZalAo|£Aa5  ;  n.b  H  .  Z  .  >©L, . 

49,  n.  3,  fa©-  :  H  ji  *> ;  49,  n.  4,  l.  1,  .  1©  ,-J  :  H  .  |  .  ;  49, 

n.  4 a  =  H;  49,  n.  5,  H  ;  49,  n.  6,  H=L. 

50,  n.  1,  l.  1,  :  H  ^slo ;  50:7,  P  :  H  JJo ;  50:8,  |-*ooi :  H  i-*o5i . 


Antonius  Rhetor  on  Versification 


213 


H  fol.  1166,  indy,  (51,  n.  1,  l.  1);  51,  n.  la,  H  ILoJo;  51,  n.  1, 

l.  7,  j-L^Z^as :  H  U-»-*£Zc ;  51,  n.  Id,  H  .ooi  a i  (intended  for  0  by 

•  •  ' 

Martin?);  51,  n.  1,  l.  8,  H  om.  51:4,  :  H  ■*■-  ? ;  51:5,  ^-£oZ: 

oZo;  51,  n.  3,  H  ns^zjo ;  51,  n.  7,  ^aJo  :  Hx Jo;  51  ,n.8,H  =  L; 

51:9,  r-DQ  :  H  i-^,-00  . 

•  •  • 

52,  n.  1,  <qJo  :  H  ;  52,  n.  3,  H  —  L;  vs.  3,  omitted  in  the  text,  is 

inserted  by  the  first  hand  in  the  lower  margin;  :  H  ,-ZsoZLaZc  ; 

•  •  •• 

52,  n.  4,  H—L ;  H  fol.  117a,  ,  indy.  (52:5);  52:9,  ,-*^1  ovxo: 

^  •  ••  • 

H  01X50  . 

•  •• 

53,  n.  1,  l.  1,  ,ZiC :  H  ;  1z)z^3 :  H  ;  Vz? :  H  Vz ;  : 

H  ;  53,  n.  1,  l.  2,  ,-.\l\?o :  H  ;  53,  n.  la,  H  =  L,  exc.  <n  yro  «n 

et  ^  yro  ^ ;  53,  n.  1,  l.  5,  l-o-oa-guo :  H  ;  53,  n.  1,  l.  6,  z|o  ; 

•  • 

H  .  ^ ;  53,  n.  1  c,  H  =  L ;  53,  n.  1,  l.  8,  H  without  abbrev.;  a : 

•  .* 

H  ;  not  “le  vers  commence  par  une  lettre,  s’appuie  sur  une  seconde  et 
finisse  par  une  troisieme,”  but  “one  and  the  same  verse  opens  with  one  letter 
and  arrives  at  and  ends  in  another”;  53,  n.  1,  l.  9,  |sio :  II  .  <no  . 

H  fol.  1176  indy.  (54: 1);  54:11,  H 

•  • 

54:12,  |ou»xLso :  H  |ou»xls  ;  54,  n.  5,  II  trsy.  jz^.  .  oiA.oamV  )  a^vzazc 

jl  y  .  ^  .  ~  , 

_  V 

55, 7i.  1,  l.  1,  v40i :  H  wkoi ;  55,  n.  1,  l.  2,  .  i*zoio  :  H  *.Sr?o  ;  H  om. 

•  • 

>-= ;  z.,-*;  H  ^j-*;  55,  n.  la,  H  |?oizj;  55,  n.  3,  Zouz.i:  II  A^oi,?;  H 
•  •  •  •  •  * 

fol.  118a,  fduo ,  indy.  (55:3). 

56:3,  ^ZoXos}  ^oi  *  H  vuZoIx— i*  s*oi  Mai.;  H  |j  MQffl  • 

•  .* 

56:4,  Za2z:  H  ^Zo^;  _^o:  H  ,-Zo?;  56:5,  >*oio2M  :  H  ©A-*j;  56:10, 

'  »  • 

ooi  jzx] :  H  ooi  jJLx] ;  56,  n.  7,  H  IjZolz] . 

•  • 

57,  n.  1,  l.  1,  Izs:  H  U^;  a  H  <n-£  .  >  ^rcSn\ ;  57,  n.  16,  H 

^  ^  •  •  •  •• 

Vil^zj  .  ^  \\sz) ;  57,  n.  1,  l.  5,  yost  IZoZj  H  add.  .  I .  ;  57,  n.  1,  l.  7, 
H  om.  |jDj£  (at  this  point  begins  L  fol.  736);  57,  n.  1,  l.  8,  ooi :  H  ooi ; 


214 


The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages 


57,  n.  1,  l.  9,  wicoj n »\gi?  H  (and  Of)  should  be  included  in  note  c;  H  fob 
1186,  incip.  (57,  n.  1,  l.  9);  not:  “Tous  les  vers  n’ont  qu’une 

seule  mesure”;  but  “all  (the  verses)  begin  and  end  with  one  and  the  same 
letter.’  ’ 


58:6,  I’r^?:  H  58:11,  :  // jJVZa-*;  58:13, 

•  ••  • 

H  58:15,  ante  H  add.  H-\-* 


59 : 4,  ^  aIsto  :  II  ;  59:5 ,  H  om.  ;  59,  n.  3,  l.  3,  H  without 

•  ••  •  ^ 

abbrev.;  H  fol.  119a,  ci^o,  incip.  ••  U^cn  ,-JLkj^lo  (59,  n.  3  fin.);  59:10, 
:  H  jv.LT\r:o ;  Uzz  :  II  . 

60:1,  UP:  SM;  60:6/7,  H  .Nmuo;  60 : 7/8,  U41o  ~=  .  ^  / 

•  •  • 

60,  n.  2,  w-a.  :  II  .  ^  . ;  60:10,  cij^a^ :  H  en^c^o;  60:11,  oiA^on^^  : 
H  ;  60:13,  H  incip.  ©  . 

61,  n.  1,  :  H  61:8,  H  om.  c;  61,  n.  3,  H  without 

•  • 

abbrev.;  61:9,  1  ViSsn^A. :  H  .  i-ViI— 4.  .•  (thus  repeating  the  word 

thrice). 


H  fob  1196,  incip.  (62:1);  62:1,  i-N^io :  H  ;  62:2, 

•  •  • 

•  •  ••  • 

i^uo :  H  post  H  add.  .  1j-^;  62:4,  oen  IL* :  H  ooi  IL*; 

•  •  •  •  •• 

62:10,  13,  H  without  abbrev.;  62:11,  ooi  :  H  ooi  ;  62:15, 

H  62:17,  :  H  • 


63:1,  >^oi zzizm  :  H  ;  63:3,  :  H  i-ia^os  ;  63,  n.  3,  init.  : 

H  ;  63,  n.  3,  l.  3,  AJ|  y\  *  w » :  H  £J|  >©au* ;  H  fob  120a,  a^-s  ,  incip. 

(63,  n.  3,  l.  4);  63,  n.  3,  l.  4,  fin.,  ;  H  ;  63,  n.  3, 

•  • 

p.  64,  l.  2,  fZ.o  :  H  r— o ;  63,  n.  3,  p.  64d,  H  1hiocl^uj|o  (probably  intended 

by  Martin  for  0 );  hereafter  resolutions  of  abbreviations  in  H  will  not 
be  noted. 


v  : 

64,  n.  1,  .  jloob^ :  H  i  va.\l  **  (in  red). 

•  •  • 


1  The  writer  would  seem  to  want  the  last  three  verses  of  this  example  read  in  reverse 
order. 


Antonius  Rhetor  on  Versification 


215 


65,  the  numbers  after  the  colon,  pp.  65,  66,  refer  to  lines  of  the  Syriac 

text  continuing  n.  1  of  p.  64;  65:  2,  ^s| :  H  ws| ;  :  H  ;  65:4, 

1-aaJI :  H  ;  65,  n.  c,  H  :  |Za-axa-so  oj  .  o|  jZn  ; 

•  •  ••  •  •  •  ••  • 

••  » 

65:5,  7,  iia-A* :  H  (but  with  plural  adjectives);  65:6,  H  om.  wn  ^  ; 

65:8,  »r.i  3)-s  :  H  ;  i-BaioJ  :  H  ;  65:5-8,  “  Thirdly,  (one  must 

:  • 

avoid  the  use)  of  short  and  long  vowels,  e.g.,  susep(p)a,  aupa;  bas(s)im, 

h9slm;  tuk(k)e,  masuke.  Therefore,  either  let  him  take  like  vowels,”  etc.; 

H  fol.  1205,  incip.  ;  (65:9);  65:10,  H  om.  a\\  ^ 

•  ••  »  • 

^*oi  (homoioteleuton) ;  65:13,  (1):  H  :  H  1-a.as  ; 

•  • 

:  H  ;  65 : 14,  j. »  *  a  :  H  . 

66:1,  ?■  a i  :  H  j  tRnjw  ;  66,  n.  1,  H  ^  ;  66:2,  >5^  H\^; 

•  • 

66:5,  |?ci  :  H  ^cn  |?ai ;  :  H  giZo ;  66,  n.  4  =  //  (probably 

text  of  0 ) ;  66 : 4/ 5,  translate :  “These,  because  doubled,  destroy  the  essence 
of  Aleph;  Aleph  preserves  its  full  value,  when  doubled  upon  itself,”  i.e., 
when  it  serves  as  the  starting-  or  turning-point  of  the  syllable,  as  the 
examples  show. 


67:1,  \U:  H  :  H  H  fol.  121a,  }-»~o  ,  incip. 

•  ••  •  •  0  •  • 

(67:1  Jin.);  67:2,  ^l.ll  :  H  67:3,  Uam?o:  H 

Usaa?o;  67:8,  ILoAie :  H  ilaiiAs  ;  67:11,  Ul:  H  ill. ;  67:12,  -so: 

•  •  • 

H  r-^sio ;  67 : 13,  jj? :  H  Usnja^  ;  67 : 14,  : 

H  ;  67 : 15,  :  H  ;  67 : 16,  |1  ~>n  ra\ :  H  ii-saai!^ ; 

67:18,  ^ojo:  H  ;  H  fol.  1215,  incip.  (67:18). 


Martin’s  “Appendix”  is  found  in  H  fol.  495  (oiio),  l.  7  to  505,  l.  15. 
The  collation  follows: 

68:1,  :  H  |Zo?qi  isar; ;  68:5,  ^2^3  :  H  68:6,  ws| 

IjJffio  :  H  ljjs|  ws|c  ;  68,  n.  3,  H  =  L ;  H  fol.  50a,  a^>  ,  incip.  Uvcu 1^,  jA^^as 


216  The  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages 

(68:11);  68:12,  UoiZ:  H  68:13,  (1):  H  68,  n.  7, 

H  [j-  LlIc^d!)  ,  i.e.,  deleting  the  second;  68:14, 1-^1  :  H 

69:1,  |?oi>:  £H?oi;  69:2,  :  H  i-ii  ;  69:3,  ^coZ:  oZo;  69:4, 

VV~, r.Jk,  :  H  .oio.  ;  69:6,  **  riVt  .nn  • 

•  •  • 

77  oil^o  nnN,  co  (sic!)]  H  fol.  506,  incip.  (69:7);  69:7,  H  om.  ; 
•  • 

69:9,  cno :  H  ;  69:10,  A,rav,iz ;  H  ;  69:12,  ou-JqJ-do 

•  •  •  •  • 

t-$J  :  H  oi  *  3n a lo  (sic/) ;  69,  n.  5,  77  pro  ^*oi2^  ovl> ;  69 : 18,  : 

•  .*  • 

H  ;  69:19 ,  H  without  abbreviation. 

In  H  follows  a  colophon  of  four  lines;  cf.  p.  204. 


1  Brackets  designate  words  expunged  by  the  writer  of  the  manuscript  or  his  cor¬ 
rector. 


i 


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